The West Wing
by InfinityForever7
Summary: During a trip to the old abandoned west wing of Hollywood Arts, six students discover a centuries-old conflict between light and darkness. Nothing about their enemy or the circumstances is simple; even with their newfound elemental powers to aid them, these teenagers may be facing an entity far stronger than they could ever imagine.
1. The Best Laid Plans

**A/N Yo yo, my muffins. Long time no see. So, for those of you who've read Scarlet Hopes and Paper Dreams ****or**** Hearts of Fire and Notes of Glass (which is now on hiatus to make time for this story; you're welcome), you'll know me and that I call my readers muffins. If you haven't, well, hi. This story contains multiple mentions of SHAPD's events, so you should probably read it to avoid confusion. So enjoy it! Please review if you liked this, or not, or went "meh," or whatever. Just so you guys know, I'm not quite sure what PoV I'll do it from yet; probably Robbie's, but I still can't be certain. So it might switch a lot. There's a nifty little contest for ya at the bottom….. Read on! ;) **

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Robbie's PoV

The sun shone down on the teen-filled Asphalt Café.

As dancers twirled around us, Cat and I walked hand in hand to our group's usual lunch table, where Tori, Andre, Jade and Beck were already sitting.

"Sorry we're late, you guys," I puffed, slightly out of breath, as we sat down next to each other. "We were, ah – catching up on homework." It was a lame lie, I knew, but how exactly do you tell your friends you're late for lunch because you've been making out with the love of your life in a janitor's closet?

Right about now was when Rex would have made some insulting and slightly suggestive comment.

If he had been "alive" anymore.

A week ago, when I finally worked up the courage to ask Cat out, I had torn Rex apart, burned the pieces, and thrown the ashes into the ocean. I no longer wanted anything to do with that puppet. He'd insulted my now-girlfriend, then-best friend more times than I could count, and made my life a living hell. But that "reign of terror" was now over.

I was no longer _Robbie, the weird, skinny nerd with the freaky puppet. _I'd really been lifting a lot lately, and eating more, and I think it was finally starting to show.

I was now just plain _Robbie. _Or possibly _the happiest guy alive. _Both fit pretty well.

I was jolted out of my thoughts by a certain red-haired angel's fingers snapping in front of my face.

"Robbie? Helloooooo… Earth to Robbie!" she said loudly, breaking my out of my reminiscing. I blinked, dazed.

"Did you even hear what Jade was saying?" I shook my head no. She sighed, half disapproving, half amused, and leaned in close to me. Pecking me twice on the lips, she then pulled away with one eyebrow raised as I shook myself fully out of my trance. "Better?" She asked. I nodded, mouth hanging open breathlessly. Cat sure knew how to wake a guy up.

"Someone didn't have their coffee this morning," smiled Andre, who, as usual, sat next to Tori.

Jade sighed and rolled her eyes at me, irritated that I had missed whatever she'd been talking about. When she spoke, her words sounded a bit frustrated.

"I was saying that maybe we should all go explore the old abandoned west wing sometime."

The phrase "abandoned west wing" struck a chord in my memory. "But wait, the old west wing, isn't that…."

"The place we poked around in while we were looking for Cat during all that drama last week." Beck finished my sentence, nodding at me, Andre, and himself.

As he mentioned our escapade to the one place in the school with the aura of a tomb, a shiver ran down my spine. Was it a shiver of cold, of foreboding, or of something else?

I quickly forgot my jittery back as Jade started speaking again.

"Well, I've been wanting to look around there and see what it's like since you guys went in and _didn't invite me._" As she said the last part of her sentence, her eyes narrowed and she looked straight at Beck. He threw his hands up in the air and immediately protested, to which Miss West took offense, as usual. Their argument went on for about forty seconds, and then somehow they both ended up furiously lip-locking each other.

So, pretty much the norm for them, then.

Although, this was a new record for them; it usually took them at least a minute to, ahem, _resolve their debates. _

As they pulled away from each other, both a bit flushed, Beck grinned and Jade smirked at the rest of us. "What are you looking at?" she halfheartedly snapped at us, her acid tone ruined by the grudgingly happy look on her face.

We remained silent as she stared furiously at each one of us in turn, demanding, "What?" in an irritated tone of voice.

"So about this little trip to the west wing…." Tori attempted to jump in and break the awkward tension that was mounting among us.

"Um, yeah, sounds like a good idea to me." Andre quickly said, getting the drift. We all started mumbling about how nice it sounded, talking at the same time as each other until you could barely understand what we were saying.

Beck's voice quieted us all.

"Alright then, it's settled. You guys good with this Saturday at noon?" He looked inquiringly at us, hugging Jade and smiling slightly.

We all nodded in assent. "Bring flashlights and stuff, okay?"

Tori spoke up. "I can bring my dad's tazer if you want."

Beck nodded. "That'll be fine. And if any of you guys have stuff like that, feel free to bring it. Just don't, you know, mess around with it or anything."

Jade smiled her rare, real smile that came once in a blue moon. "Thanks, you guys. It really does mean a lot." Her smile suddenly turned into a menacing frown, her eyebrows quirked, and her voice tinged with hostility. "But I swear, Vega, make one move with Beck and I'll take that tazer and shove it up your –"

Thankfully, Beck's hand covered her mouth before she could finish her sentence.

"So, Saturday at noon, and we should bring flashlights and stuff?" Cat confirmed in a serious tone, looking at Jade and Beck for affirmation. They nodded. "Sound good!" She snuggled up against me, laughing and playing with my hair.

Another ice-cold shiver made its way down my spine, and my stomach tingled in a way that I knew had nothing to do with the pizza I had just eaten. I decided to ignore it. We'd be in a group, with tazers and stuff. Cat and I would be perfectly safe.

What could possibly go wrong?

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**A/N So, you like? You don't like? Tell me in a review! If your review is long or awesome or funny enough, it'll get mentioned as a shout-out or something like that. So review! **

**Alright, here's the contest I mentioned….. It's nothing big, but it would really mean a lot to me if at least a few people participated. It's in two parts, and it will be conducted **_**through PM only. NO REVIEW ENTRIES.**_

**First part: There **_**will **_**be a villain, and I need a name for him. Something creepy, and sinister. Preferably first, middle and last. Slightly unusual would be best, but still believable. It's a little like an OC, but not that much. I really just need the name, but if you think you have a **_**really **_**good idea and you wanna share it with me, then go ahead. PM me with your ideas. Next chapter, I'll give you a shout-out if you won.**

**Second part: This very multi-chap that you just read was foreshadowed a **_**long **_**time ago, in a story I wrote. If you can **_**explicitly, word-for-word verbatim **_**quote which story, which chapter, and the exact dialogue/thoughts and character I used to foreshadow it, you win… (Drum roll please) A large shout-out and a chapter dedicated specifically to you! In the dedicated chapter, you can request a significant moment in one of these three pairings: Bade, Tandre, or Cabbie. It won't go to M, but there will be some adorable and juicy stuff, I assure you. First come, first served.**

****Once again, I must remind you all; **_**both parts of the contest will be conducted entirely through PM. You can enter either part or both, it doesn't matter. But don't put your entries to either in a review, as that could lead to idea theft. So PM me, all of you! Thanks!**_

**Unrelated to contest: Do you guys think I should include Trina and Sinjin in this? If so, there would be a few Trinjin moments…. I'm not sure if they would end up together or not. Anyway, should they (and Sikowitz) be in this at all? If so, all three would have smaller parts than the already mentioned characters, but still, they'd have roles…. Tell me! I'm so confused!**

**Thank you guys so much. Since reviews aren't connected to the contest, you can review if you want, with suggestions, thoughts, questions, comments, whatever. I'll respond.**

**I Love You All! Please Read, Review, and Enter!**

**~IF7**


	2. Often Go Awry

**A/N Greetings, earthlings…. I've returned, as promised! Yay! Your contest entries and reviews all brought joy to my heart, so, thank you all! And the winners are….. Drum roll please!**

**First part winner: PurpleVolcano! Congrats! If you guys don't know who that is, "Then scrape that crud outta your eyes!" -Sam (iCarly, couldn't help myself) He/she is doing an OC story called The Great Hollywood Whodunit that you should check out if you wish to live. Wait, I can't threaten people? Even if it's for a good cause? You don't say. Uh, sorry…. Anyway, Love yah, PV! Keep believin'.**

**Second part first place winner: Tawny-Fern! You Pm'd me with your answer fist, and so you've won a dedicated chapter and this very special shout-out! Weeeeee! I hope you enjoy the Bade that you requested; I tried to make it nice…. Tell me if you like it, okay? I need to know these things!**

**Second part second place winner: High On Mariah84! Hey there! I really appreciate the fact that you entered! It made my day:) And so did your review! Thanks again! I owe ya one, or a couple.**

**To everyone else who reviewed: Your responses brighten up my day. Long reviews are to me what coffee is to Jade: necessary for survival. As I said before, if your review is long or funny enough, it'll be mentioned. If not, don't feel left out. I'm not pressuring anyone, just telling you what I like.**

**Review Responses:**

**Jessimi1: Thanks for being my first reviewer! I'll try to make that work; not sure if it will, but I'll try.**

**Disclaimer: I forgot to put this in the last chapter. Bad me! I don't own Victorious.**

**Now, on to the actual story! I've got more than 275 words so far, just on author's notes… Geez, I really need to cut back.**

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Robbie's PoV

My hand jittered slightly as it came to rest on the knob of the door that led in to the old west wing.

We had all come prepared for this adventure: Durable clothing, sneakers (combat boots in Jade and Beck's case), flashlights, water, a few granola bars, bags of trail mix, and Tori's tazer. I had also brought an old switchblade that had been my grandfather's; it had some strange symbols carved into the wooden hilt that looked as if it had been inked in, like someone wanted to preserve it.

Somehow, I had ended up in the front of our little group as we edged down the hallways of Hollywood Arts, afraid to be caught in school on a Saturday. We had all told our parents we'd be going to the beach for the weekend in Beck's RV; he hadn't had to tell his parents anything. They didn't really see him that often, since he lived in partial seclusion in their driveway, so to not see or hear from him for a few days in a row wouldn't cause a fuss with them.

We had brought sleeping bags and planned to stay overnight in the creepy, rundown place to see if the rumors of haunting were true or bogus. Jade was possibly the most excited of us all, and Tori the least. Even with her tazer, she'd wanted to back out as soon as we reached the door. Andre was in the middle of trying to comfort her, Jade and Beck were pressed against a few nearby lockers making out like the world was ending, and Cat was standing next to me, playing with a piece of her hair and looking around nervously.

I nodded to Andre, who wrapped Tori in his arms while muttering "it's okay, it's okay" softly. He then released the now-calm Latina and coughed heavily at Jade and Beck. They split apart, Jade a little flushed, and Beck unruffled as usual. The semi-Goth intertwined her fingers with Beck's and lazily walked towards the door, rummaging in her pocket for something.

As she reached the rest of us, now clustered around the door, she pulled a key out of her pants pocket and shoved it into the lock. Turning it, she opened the door with a faint _creak _and withdrew they key, placing it back in her pocket. We all peered nervously into the dark, ominous hallway that opened before us.

"I'm guessing 'ladies first' doesn't apply here." Andre's voice was hushed.

"Yeah, it really doesn't. Robbie, can you go first?" Tori sounded a little nervous as she moved closer to Andre.

Cat stepped forward, a confident look on her face. "If he goes first, then I'm going with him." Her voice was determined as she intertwined her hand around my elbow.

I nodded, mouth suddenly dry, and took the first step into the dismal hallway, Cat clutching my arm tightly. Slowly, the others flowed behind us. As Tori and Andre, trailing behind, entered and moved a few steps beyond the threshold, the door swung shut with a loud _bang._

We all jumped, and Jade turned to look accusingly at the two.

"It wasn't me." They spoke at the same time, glanced at each other, and then moved slightly closer together. Behind me, I felt Cat let go of my arm. Stepping forward, I inspected the old metal door handle. There appeared to be words carved in the wood below it.

"_Non est exitus." _I spoke the words in a hushed tone, thankful that I'd taken a Latin course with a tutor last year. Dead language, my buttocks.

The others instantly quieted, unsure of the words' meaning. I translated the ominous phrase without looking around, not wanting to see their expressions.

"_There is no escape."_

I could have sworn I heard faint, mocking laughter somewhere in the distance.

I heard them gasp slightly. Suddenly they were all at my side, gazing at the inscription in fear and awe.

"Calm down, guys. It's probably just a bit of creepy graffiti some student put here a while ago. And it's not even true, look…." Jade's somewhat irritated voice trailed off as she reached for the door handle. As her hand came to rest on it, she turned it, halted, and jiggled it from side to side. She leaned back a little, frowning. "This thing's jacked, I can't turn it." Beck leaned down at her side, squinting at the metal knob. "I'd say it was locked, but look…." He frowned and pointed at its tarnished surface. "There's no keyhole."

Jade huffed angrily. Gesturing for us all to stand back, she planted a few well-placed kicks in the area around the knob. Judging both by the thuds and the portal's resistance, the door was unyielding, solid wood. Finally she stopped kicking, leaned back against Beck, and sighed. "I never thought I'd say this, but I actually _can't _break that door down." He put a hand on her shoulder, led her over to a wall about ten feet away from the rest of us, and quietly said, "Let me make it up to you."

With that, he put a hand under her chin and brought Jade's lips to his. Their innocent kiss escalated rapidly into a full-blown make-out; it looked like they were trying to make up for the lost time by the lockers earlier. Between kisses, they whispered "I love you"'s to each other.

Still bent over, examining the door handle, I called to them without looking away from the Latin carving. "Hey, guys, sorry to interrupt you and all, but we kinda need you over here."

I heard Jade mutter angrily and Beck try to placate her as they walked towards us, hand in hand. I stood, dusting my hand off on my jeans and still facing the door.

"Now, I was thinking; the door looks like it's jammed, and there's no keyhole on this side. I don't think we can take the hinges out, because they look pretty rusted in. What I think we might be able to do is find something to use as a crowbar and pry along these cracks to make a hole big enough for Cat to fit through." I turned around, expecting to hear her cheery voice and see her brilliant red hair as she skipped happily up to my side.

That was an expectation that would never be met.

"Cat?"

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Cat's PoV

Looking over my shoulder, I saw a flash of movement at the other end of the hallway. I let go of Robbie's shoulder and quietly crept over to the place where I had seen the motion, hardly breathing. I turned on the spot, looking at the others, who were now clustered around the door talking about something, to make sure they were okay.

In doing so, I exposed my back to the hall that ran perpendicular to the one I stood in.

A rush of frigid air enveloped me as a cold hand slid over my mouth, muffling my screams as I was dragged further into the darkness.

A voice whispered, _"Lorem tenebris amplexu sopor."_

I felt the dark clouds of unconsciousness drift around me as I gave up the fight to stay awake.

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**A/N I'll make this one short. Did you like it? Hate it? Were you, Tawny-Fern, happy with the Bade? Any questions, comments? Small requests? Rants? Rotten tomatoes? Tell me in a review! I adore long and funny reviews:) Thanks for reading, the next chapter will be up soon!**

**P.S Type that last Latin phrase into Google Translate. Pretty cool, huh? I thought it sounded nice.**

**Peace, Love, Happiness,**

**~IF7**


	3. A Narrow Escape

**A/N Oh, muffins, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…. Wait, there's way too many to count! I really do love you guys! Thank you so much for all the reviews and alerts and favorites. **_**13 reviews and a boatload of alerts and favorites for just **__**2 chapters**__**? **_**That's amazing! Thank you so, so, so much, guys. That makes me feel special :) I'm trying to cut back on the length of my Author's Notes, as they seem to detract from the story and add unnecessary length. What do you guys think?**

**Review Responses**

**HelloMichelle: Glad you liked it! I'm sorry you missed the contest; I bet your entry would have been terrifyingly awesome. I'm going to try to make this story as long as I can!**

**Digidestend Angel: Hi there! I've read all of your songfics and such, and I love how you make Bat so sweet and believable. I'm kinda honored that my story would attract your notice. Keep reading!**

**PurpleVolcano: I. LOVE. YOUR. TEACHER. He sounds a lot like Sikowitz… Try not to get hit with that big nasty stick! I hope you survive Latin class, physically and mentally! I'm glad that you like the language. Also, hello, fellow "she"!**

**And Jessimi1, my first reviewer, I've put your request in here. It actually works in the story! Yay! **

**Disclaimer: By assuming that I own Victorious, you also assume something else: That I am Dan Schneider, and therefore male. I am neither of these things.**

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Robbie's PoV  
><span>Yet another ice-cold shiver of foreboding ran up my neck as I stared into the darkness. I knew Cat was in there somewhere. As for why she'd decided to venture along the dismal hallway without a flashlight, I had no clue.

Thus my fear.

Cat didn't like darkness. I knew that wherever she was by now, she'd be frightened and alone, hoping and praying that I would come find her.

And I would.

Turning back to the others, my expression grim, I made the inevitable announcement.

"You guys, we've got to go find Cat. That's more important than getting out of here."

Jade, who we all knew feared almost nothing, spoke with a tinge of worry in her voice. "I think she just went along this hallway and disappeared… It's really hard to see anything at the other end, but it looks like there's another hall leading perpendicular to this one. That's really the only way she could have gone…."

I frowned, seeing a hole in her statement. "But the hall leads left and right. We'd have to split up to go find her."

Jade smirked. "Exactly my point. Vega and Harris can go to the left, and Beck and I can go to the right…. You can come with us."

"Alright, I guess it's settled then." Andre spoke with slightly false bravado as he smiled widely at Tori. She nervously returned the grin as we all proceeded to the end of the hallway and stood there as if waiting for instructions.

I cleared my throat, opened my mouth to speak, and stopped as I felt a rush of freezing cold air blow past us.

The next thing I heard was Tori's scream.

After that, the only images I could see were a jumble of faces, a pale, oddly dressed man dashing to and fro, and finally Tori readying her tazer and pointing it at the strange man, who radiated an ice-cold aura, with shaky hands.

She fired, and he dodged out of the way. The barbs of the tazer instead struck Jade, who had been sneaking up behind him with a pocketknife raised high. She groaned and dropped to the floor as the electricity ran through her, rendering the semi-Goth unconscious. Beck rushed to her side, never taking his eyes off the man, who now stood in the shadows of the hall.

Lowering the tazer, Tori yanked the wires toward herself, releasing the barbs from Jade's unconscious body. She quickly reloaded the weapon, aiming it at the man with her trembling finger creaking on the trigger.

I quietly drew my grandfather's switchblade from my pocket and held it behind my back, brushing my thumb across the strange symbols carved into the wooden handle.

The man did not react in any way to this threat, other than standing in the shadows and staring creepily at us. Finally, he cleared his throat, moved a little closer to us, and spoke, his high, cold, sibilant voice sending shivers down my spine.

"_Omnes vos__, incidunt in__abyssum__frigore__somnum."_

I felt my eyelids growing heavy, and I clutched the wooden handle of the knife, accidentally pressing the spring-loaded button and releasing the blade as I fought to stay awake. Suddenly, a sharp sting in my hand woke me from the heavy stupor clouding my brain. I shook my head, dispelling the veils of unconsciousness as I clutched the knife tighter. As I gripped the wooden handle and brought the blade in front of me, I noticed a light shining from the hilt.

I kept watch on the man, who had frozen in place, out of the corner of my eye as I lifted the knife to examine the grip. The symbols carved into the wood shone with a fierce light, bright enough to make my eyes water. As I blinked, I could see the afterimages of the signs imprinted on my eyelids.

As I watched, the light slowly began to spread upwards from the hilt, coating it and the three-inch blade in a bright golden light. As I raised the glowing weapon in utter awe and confusion, the man shrank back into the shadows. He hissed and spat on the ground at my feet.

Behind me, the others seemed to have also recovered from whatever trick he had pulled on us. Jade remained unconscious on the floor, with Beck, at her side, holding her hand. Andre shook his head like a wet dog, and Tori's knees began to tremble as the man took a few steps closer to us, warily keeping his eyes on the shining blade I held in my hand. He hissed, and spat at my feet again.

"Ach! Just when I think I've seen the end of your kind, another troublesome Light-Wielder has to blunder into my path. I grant you, your powers are stronger than most newborns of your kind, but not nearly strong enough to defeat me…. You shall soon fall, young one." His cold voice, thought quiet, rang in my ears for a few seconds before fading away.

I didn't understand a word of what he had just said. Light-Wielders? Newborns? Powers? He must have had the wrong person. I was just plain old Robbie Shapiro. I wasn't really anything special. True, I had a _glowing knife _in my hand, but that was probably just a reflection from someone's flashlight. Maybe these old switchblades had some sort of light-up gimmick.

My hand shook as I slowly lowered the knife a little.

"What do you want?" I was disgusted at the way my voice sounded in the darkened hallway. Trembling and weak, it sounded thinner than the squeak of a bat. I cleared my throat and repeated the question, trying to be brave for Cat, wherever she was.

"What do you want?" There, that was better. My voice rang in the still silence, sounding bolder than I really felt.

"So you really don't know, then. Hah! This is just pitiful. I find a whole group of Elementals, and a Light-Wielder to boot, and they haven't even realized their powers yet. I'm disgusted. Youth these days…." He snorted scornfully and muttered to himself.

"I have no idea what you're talking about…." My voice trailed off as I frowned, confused. Was this guy not right in the head or something?

"I'm perfectly 'right in the head', thank you very much, young fellow. You don't have to be rude." He sneered at me, cold voice echoing in the ominous hallway.

I blinked in surprise. Was it possible that this freak could read my mind?

"Yes, it's more than possible. In fact, it's true. Now, I'm growing tired of this." He sighed and grimaced unpleasantly. "I don't expect you'll be too much of a challenge for me…. But wait. Take this." With those words, he threw a lock of red velvet colored hair at my feet. I picked it up, savoring the smoothness of my angel's hair as I contemplated what this meant. Cat was proud of her soft, oddly-colored hair, and she'd never let _anyone _cut it. Ever.

"What did you _do _to her?" I growled angrily.

He grinned maniacally. "Nothing quite yet, child. But believe me, once you're out of my way, there will be a lot of things to do with that one. She smells sweet… Almost like candy. Yes, like candy and flowers."

I growled again, clutching the knife tighter in my fist. The light seemed to shine brighter in response to my anger.

"Let her go, whoever you are. You have no right – "

"You're quite right. I have no right to be holding her captive, but _you_, young Light-Wielder, have no right to be making demands of me. I'm some ten thousand years your senior, and I've been waiting for a moment such as this for a _long _time. You aren't going to stand in my way. And since you asked, who _I _am will be kept secret for now. Who _this body _once was, however, is a different matter. You may address this physical manifestation as Everett Sikowitz. I believe he was an ancestor to one of your teachers…. Anyway, back to business. It's time for you to die." Having completed his monologue, Sikowitz, Sr. muttered some more Latin words under his breath, and the shadows themselves seemed to twist and writhe. An instinct told me to _run._

I motioned to the others to follow me as I dashed down the hallway to an unknown destination, following the silent instinct inside my head. Sikowitz Sr. did nothing except stand and laugh as he watched us disappear into the distance. "There is no escape, you fools!"

I led the rush as we stampeded down the hallway, Beck carrying Jade's unconscious body, Andre and Tori following behind them. Twisting ropes of shadow pursued us, menacingly silent and swift.

As we drew up to a door, the shadows seemed to slow as we halted, puffing and panting. They waited for us, seemingly watching as they danced like flickering flames. One dark tentacle separated from the others and jabbed toward me. Like lighting I covered my face and stabbed outward with the now blinding-bright knife. As the blade hit the shadow, the dark wraith dissipated instantly into nothing. I threw open the door, saw that it led into an empty room, and dashed into it. Another tendril snapped at me, and I threw the knife at it. The glowing blade lodged in the shadow for a split second before falling to the floor, lodging in the wood point-first as the darkness dissipated. The shadows reached toward us, a menacing wall of writhing darkness, and suddenly stopped. Remaining at a distance of a few feet from the knife, the foremost of the wraiths emitted a hiss similar to the one Sikowitz Senior had given in reaction to my knife.

Slowly, a line of light began to spread from the embedded tip of the blade. Moving from both ends, it quickly encircled the doorway in a crescent of gleaming light. The tendrils writhed for a moment, and then slowly withdrew, seemingly unable to pass over the line. Suddenly, they all lashed out towards us at once and abruptly slammed against a wall of light that flared up from the glowing line.

The shadows emitted another screeching hiss as many of the tendrils vanished with a sizzling sound not unlike frying eggs. The remains, flopping about like headless snakes, quickly drew back into the darkness. From somewhere in the depths of the west wing, there came an enraged howl.

I reached down and pulled the brightly shining knife from the floor, the line remained after I pulled it out, still shining brightly. I motioned the others inside the room.

Peering out into the darkness, I wondered what the _heck _was going on. I didn't understand any of this. I just wanted Cat. I wanted, _needed _to hold my red-haired angel in my arms, to stroke her hair, to hear her voice and know she was okay.

A million and one questions raced around inside my head. What exactly _was _going on? Who was this weird guy claiming to be an ancestor of Sikowitz's? What did he want with us? More importantly, what did he want with Cat? Would I ever see her again?

I sighed and stepped inside the room, closing the door and leaning against it.

So, we were safe, but for how long?

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**A/N And here's the "Supernatural" part. I'll try and make this note quick, because I'm not allowed to be on the computer for a while right now. So I won't be able to update for a little bit, sorry :( I'm sad too, believe me. So, what'd you guys think? The true identity of "Sikowitz Senior", what's happening with Cat, and the whole deal about Light-Wielders and Elementals and Robbie's knife will be explained later…. I'll try to make it as long as I can.**

**Positive reviews are awesome! Overly negative ones will cause me to update slower. Remember the rule about shout-outs: Only for awesome reviews!**

**Love You All!**

**~IF7**


	4. A NotSoShort History of Things

**A/N Sorry for my absence, you guys! Let me explain: I'm frequently kicked off of fanfiction as a punishment for "bad behavior." And by kicked off, I mean my mother **_**hides the keyboard.**_** So, for three days, I've had no way to type. So if I don't update for days on end, that's why. Forgive me!**

**Review Responses**

**The Littlest Ragamuffin: I'm so sorry for not giving you a shout-out! I hadn't seen your reviews before I updated – there are extenuating circumstances! Thank you for being so detailed and supportive. It really makes a difference. And yeah, I **_**do **_**have an OC in TGHW. Check the list for my name :)**

**PurpleVolcano: I knew Robbie was special too! He always seems kinda unappreciated, so I exploited his unwritten potential! I hope you did well on your quiz, and that your teacher didn't kill you with his big mean stick. Brain him with a coconut next time he tries, ok?**

**Disclaimer: Nope, still not owning.**

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Cat's PoV

My head throbbed as I groggily opened my eyes. Blinking a few times, I realized that open eyelids made no difference; the darkness of wherever I was enshrouded me, thick and silent as a tomb.

I tried to raise a hand to wipe my eyes, but I couldn't seem to move my arms. Or my legs. I could move my head around, but that was all. I drew in a deep breath, ready to scream as loud as I possibly could (which was pretty darn loud), when a familiar icy hand covered my mouth.

I tried my best to escape the chilling grasp, thrashing wildly from side to side as I wrestled in vain with my captor. Eventually, I lost the fight and gave up, slumping to the floor and utterly exhausted. Whoever it was took their hand off my mouth.

I heard someone mutter a quick phrase in what I guessed was Latin (I took a class in it last year, with a very odd teacher who for some reason ran around, gesturing wildly with a big stick and shouting all the time; it was pretty terrifying, but I still knew the language when I heard it), and suddenly a few oil lamps in the corners of the room lit up, their wicks dancing with flickering flame.

The person who I guessed had been speaking, a pale man dressed in dark, strangely embroidered robes, turned around to face me.

I quickly looked down at the bindings that restrained my arms and legs, and gasped; they appeared to be solid bands of shadow, both corporeal and not at the same time, adjusting to my movements but staying wrapped tightly around me.

I looked back up at the man, who was watching me intently. Tears gathered in my eyes; who knew what he was? Some creepy old pervert who wandered the halls of the deserted west wing in hopes of finding a young girl like me? Or was he something else entirely?

He frowned as he stared at me, and moved closer. I tried to inch away; I didn't like people invading my personal bubble. He snapped an impatient phrase in Latin and my dark bonds solidified, growing spikes that lodged deep in the floor and held me where I was, sitting up straight and unable to move.

The man took my chin and pressed his forehead against mine. I whimpered in fear. What was he doing?

He muttered, _"Videam prae oculis et in eam cogitationem."_

As he spoke, a pounding pressure began to build inside my head. His eyes boring into mine, the man never once looked away or blinked. The pressure finally reached an unbearable level, and I opened my mouth to scream. The man quickly pulled away, releasing me and breaking our gaze. The pain instantly stopped.

"Well now, aren't you a strong one." His voice, high and cold, rang longer than it should have in my ears. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the unpleasant sound, and he misunderstood my motion. Standing, he stepped away and suddenly wheeled around to face me again.

"You must have a few questions by now…. Ask them. I'll do my best to answer."

I shifted around, trying to get comfortable in my now-stiff bonds. He snapped his fingers, and the strands of darkness instantly relaxed, allowing me to get comfortable. I looked up at the man, a thread of fear running through my voice as I questioned him.

"Who are you?"

He gave a sigh that sounded like a snake's hiss.

"It's quite a long story, so bear with me.

"You may address me as Samael. This body that I inhabit, however, is a different story. A certain someone by the name of Everett Sikowitz once resided here…. Until he died a most unfortunate death; at my hands, of course.

"You see, child, my story, beginning at the turn of the 19th century, is a relatively uninteresting one. So I'll spare you the details. Basically, I had started an order, of sorts, of sorcerers and such. Yes, I see that look on your face. Doesn't what I've already done convince you that I'm telling the truth? Don't lie to me, I know it does. Anyway, yes, a sorcerers' order. I was the leader of it, and for a time we prospered and our numbers grew.

"Eventually, our swelling ranks attracted the attention of some powerful zealots who claimed that their kind of order had been against our kind 'since the dawn of time.' They decided to fight us; we simply laughed and believed ourselves invincible. But we were wrong. These 'Light-Wielders' had innate power to match our own, and sufficient numbers, as well. Before we knew it, all but a few of our warring sides had fallen. Even those few quickly defeated each other, leaving only myself and the three most powerful Light-Wielders alive. I was relatively unscathed, but all three of them were badly injured; thus, we were again evenly matched.

"As I gathered my strength to strike the final blow and eliminate them once and for all, the three combined their strength and unleashed a burst of power that obliterated me forever, or so they thought. Unfortunately for them, their final effort drained the last of the life energy from their already weakened bodies, killing them.

"And here's where their last-ditch attempt to wipe me out failed. That energy burst, while seeming to destroy my physical body, merely sealed it away in an underground tomb. Would you like to know where that tomb is, child? It's right about…. Here." He broke off and tapped the floor with his bare foot.

"My soul had been separated from my body and sent to a dimension that is mostly a go-between for this world and the next. It's a strange place, full of forgotten memories and lost faces. But I finally gathered the strength to return from that wretched place, and quickly located my body's tomb. Two things prevented me from entering.

"Apparently, the last three Light-Wielders, in their effort to destroy me, had also managed to place an enchanted seal on my tomb that would prevent anyone from entering. The seal can only be broken by the three casters or one each of their respective descendants, who will inherit their ancestor's full powers as a Light-Wielder."

"So how exactly do I fit in to all of this? I'm confused," I said timidly, my voice now quaking with fear. This guy was telling the truth, and what a terrifying truth it was.

"I was getting to that part before you got me monologing!" Samael shouted, an irritated look on his face. He visibly calmed himself, breathing deeply through his nose. "Anyway, as I was saying before I was so _rudely interrupted…._

"The names of those three Light-Wielders were Agrippa Valentine, Floyd Shapiro, and Everett Sikowitz, whose body my spirit now inhabits. You are a direct descendent of Agrippa, and her powers as a Light-Wielder that have passed down, always dormant through previous generations, will finally be awakened in you. The same goes for that awkward-looking young man you were with, ah, what is his name?" He paused, looking at me and waiting for an answer.

I was almost afraid to speak, thinking he might yell at me again, but I squeaked my words out anyway. "H-his name's Robbie."

"Ah, yes. Robbie Shapiro is Floyd Shapiro's direct descendant, and his powers as a Light-Wielder have already been awakened."

"What do you mean, 'awakened'?" I asked him, voice trembling with worry.

"By 'awakened,' child, I mean that Floyd's powers within Robbie are no longer dormant and are already strong enough to keep one of my more powerful enchantments at bay. The rest of your friends show signs of having strong Elemental powers as well. And, before you ask, by 'Elemental,' I mean that each one of you, excepting you and the other Light-Wielder, has control over one of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The closer a Wielder's powers become to awakening, the more obvious their element will be. For instance, a Light-Wielder will be kind and caring, whereas a Fire-Wielder will be increasingly temperamental and apt to 'erupt,' pardon the pun. Do you understand now?"

"I think so…. Wait, there's just one thing. You said that Agrippa's powers will awaken in me…. How exactly _can _they awaken?"

Samael sighed and squatted in front of me, clasping his hands and looking me straight in the eye.

"The most powerful Wielders of the Moral elements, which, in case you didn't know, are light and darkness, have experienced the awakening of their powers while they are in the presence of a certain weapon. This weapon can be anything, any object at all, but it is the medium through which they will manifest the greater part of their strength. It is their destiny to bear it, and, once their powers have awakened, the weapon or object will be imbued with a great portion of their powers, and thus it must always be with them. I can sense that you and your lover are destined to be two of the most powerful Light-Wielders this world has ever seen – you may not believe me, but I can feel it.

I frowned, doubtful. I hadn't shown any sign of having "special powers" or anything like that, so how could he possibly claim to know that I was strong?

He sighed. "Right now, you're probably wondering how I can claim to sense your potential. It's quite simple: I can read the mind of any unawakened mortal. In fact, after I took you from your friends, I confronted them and your little 'boyfriend.' I heard his thoughts before his powers awakened – they were all about you, I'm sure you'll be glad to know. He's very worried about you, but relax; I need both you and him to break the seal. And I also suspect that your Elemental friends will begin to show their true powers soon…. But that's beside the point. You have enormous potential, child, because I _cannot _read your mind. Only the three most powerful Light-Wielders and Elementals I have ever met, in other words, you and your friends' ancestors, can shield themselves from me. And you don't even appear to be aware of what you're doing. Interesting…."

He pursed his lips and stood, turning away from me with his hands clasped behind his back. Quickly rattling out another Latin phrase while turning back to face me, Samael again caused my shadowy bonds to tighten, immobilizing me. He snapped his fingers, and a small, shifting blob of pure darkness appeared in his hand.

He stepped toward me with a contemplative look on his face, and again squatted too close to me for my liking. Unsure of what he would do with the shadowy blob as he moved closer to my face, I thrashed my head around wildly in an attempt to escape his piercing gaze. Samael frowned ferociously and snapped, _"Desine luctari tua, parvulus!" _Suddenly, I couldn't move or speak. The only things that remained in motion as he drew closer were my eyes, frantically darting back and forth from the shadow to his eyes.

He raised the blob to my eye level, holding it _way _too close for comfort. I watched helplessly as it writhed and shifted constantly, always in motion.

"This is a small gobbet of pure Dark essence. To a person of your element, it would normally be quite harmful, but don't worry. You'll be fine." He gave a smile of pure evil and bent towards my ear to whisper in it.

"Just relax and close your eyes, and everything will be okay."

I kept my eyes on the _thing _in his hands, not trusting Samael for a second.

Suddenly, he released his grip on the shadow. It rested in his palm for a split second before flying into my face. I opened my mouth to scream and unwittingly gave it entrance to my body.

I felt the oily, oozing darkness sliding down my throat, my nose, my eyes. I was faintly aware that my bonds had vanished and that I writhed wildly on the floor, no longer in control of my body. All I could feel was a sickly, numbing tingling that grew worse and worse with each passing second.

My eyes rolled back in my head, and I sank almost gratefully into oblivion.

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**A/N. Sorry for the monologing. She isn't dead. R and R!**


	5. Awakenings and Revelations

**A/N I realize my ending author's note on the last chapter was unusually short – I tried to edit it, but I don't think it worked. Oh well. My mom was incredibly impatient with me, because we had to leave for a place and I wanted to update before we left. Oh yeah, and I kinda had a bad day on Tuesday, which is when I started this chapter. Yesterday was awesome; went to a concert, got a t-shirt, all that zesty goodness. But you probably don't care. Anyway….**

**Review Responses (as always, in no particular order)**

**Songbird341: I've had that problem with reading things too! It's like the world around me doesn't even exist anymore….**

**Digidestend Angel: Of course I read your stuff! I've read every one of your Bat songfics…. They're full of juicy goodness.**

**Robandie Foreves: I'm workin' it as hard as I can! Your review made me laugh…. I'm sorry for your loss of footwear.**

**The Littlest Ragamuffin: I like monologues too. I was just worried about that one being too long. And I never planned for this to be a ghost story. Ren't you glad? (No offense to ghost story writers; I love them all.)**

**PurpleVolcano: The Carebear super weapon? Huh? And monologues usually annoy me too, and I was nervous that nobody would like it…. But apparently you and everyone else did, because it turned out to be quite informative! Also, yes indeed, Cat's Latin teacher **_**is **_**based off of yours. Just thought it would be cool.**

**Disclaimer: …. I'm writing fanfiction, and you **_**seriously **_**think I **_**own **_**Victorious? You really do? Well, I don't.**

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Robbie's PoV

I took stock of the room we had rushed into.

It was fairly empty, with a few camping lanterns that we'd brought with us shining from the corners. There were also a few old-fashioned oil lamps lying around. We had lit them with Jade's lighter that she always carried with her. Other than the light sources, a thick old book lying on a white, slightly luminous metal podium in the center of the room that nobody had yet opened, and our sleeping bags, which we'd unrolled when we saw that the room was safe, no other objects cluttered the medium-sized space.

The still-unconscious Jade lay, pale and motionless, on top of her black sleeping bag. Beck had been keeping a vigil on her from the moment we'd locked the room's door; in fact, it had taken a lot of persuading to get him to let go of her so we could lay her down on the sleeping bag. It seemed that even he, Mr. Cool, Calm, and Collected himself, had an almost irrationally protective side. He and I both felt that way about the woman we loved right now; Jade hadn't moved in almost four hours now, and Cat was in the hands of some sort of sorcerer-type guy who had just tried to kill us all.

So, basically, we were both having some girlfriend issues at the moment. We were all worried about Jade; Tori's tazer shouldn't have knocked her out for as long as it had; about fifteen minutes was the maximum stun time for the setting the weapon had been on. The cheekboned brunette had tearfully apologized many times to Beck, who had forgiven her quickly, all the while keeping his eyes on Jade's unconscious form. A few times, he'd imagined that one of her eyelids twitched, or that her hand moved a millimeter; when that happened he would obnoxiously shush us all and wait in patient silence for her to wake up, but she never did.

I had carved another line into the floor just beyond the threshold with my knife. Though I really didn't have a clue as to _what, _exactly, was making it shine o brightly, I understood that it had somehow protected us all from those shadowy tentacle-things, and I intended to stay as safe as possible. As I sat alone in the corner, running though each and every little thing I could remember about my red-haired angel, I idly clicked the switchblade out of the handle. Instantly, the same warm golden light as before spread up the hilt and coated the blade, bathing the room with its radiance. I frowned. The weapon seemed to be shining even brighter than usual. As I moved it around, confused by the new level of illumination, Tori and André looked up at me from where they had been leaning against the opposite wall, talking quietly. Even Beck lifted his head from Jade's still from for the first time in two hours.

I could feel their combined gazes on me and my shining blade as I stood and opened my mouth to assure them that nothing was wrong.

Suddenly, the light began to spread downward from the end of the hilt, evenly coating my hand in a rich golden color. It felt pleasantly warm, and seemed to vibrate slightly with energy. The others exchanged shocked looks as the light stopped at my wrist, leaving me with a glowing right hand.

At once, I felt a strong urge take hold of me. Following the powerful instinct, I took a few steps across the room to where Beck still crouched over Jade's pale, still form. He glared at me as I advanced on them and seemed ready to stand and attack me for an instant, but then looked down at her and back up at me. His face softened; the fluffy-haired Canadian had decided that I was no threat to his unconscious love. He quietly moved away to stand by Tori and André as I crouched down by Jade's head, looking down at her tranquil features.

The same compulsion that I had felt to move to her increased, urging me to lift my right hand. I did so; Beck lifted his foot as if to take a step forward and throw me away from her, but then seemed to think better of it and relaxed. Following the insistent impulse, I gently placed my shining right hand, palm down, on Jade's pale forehead.

Immediately, the light covering my hand flashed, and quickly began to spread outward from the limb to her still form. For an instant, Jade's body appeared to be coated in the same golden light that covered my knife blade, and then the illumination disappeared with a flash and a faint ringing sound, akin to that of a tuning fork.

For a moment, all four of us stood in silence, watching as the color rushed back to the semi-Goth's cheeks and her chest began to rise and fall rapidly.

Abruptly, Jade sat up, gasping for breath. Beck immediately clutched her hand to his chest, an almost frenzied look in his eyes. She glanced at him questioningly for a second, before turning to me. Her famous death stare lancing directly into my eyes, she slowly growled, "Why. Are. You. _Touching. Me?"_ She drew her hand out of Beck's as if to strike me, but he quickly reclaimed it with both of his own, stroking her palm and whispering soothing words into her ear.

She quickly calmed down, the venomous look instead being directed at Tori, who, along with André, was leaning against the wall in the same position as before, frozen in shock. Jade took a deep breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth with a sound akin to a hiss of anger. "Vega…."

Tori snapped out of her unmoving pose and recoiled against the wall as Jade, having freed her hands from Beck, stood and slowly advanced on her.

"So you tazered me, huh?" Jade quietly asked as she moved forward. Her words, though seemingly calm, radiated an aura of menace more powerful than a bomb. Tori huddled even closer to André, who seemed confused as to whether he should protect her or not.

Suddenly Jade halted, a thoughtful look on her face. "You know, I think this would be better if I could return the favor." She lunged for the tazer that Tori held in her pocket, scrambling for the weapon as the Latina shrieked and tried to escape. In a matter of seconds, both girls were duking it out on the ground as Beck and Andre did their best to break up the fight. Thinking quickly, I decided to topple the pedestal in the middle of the room to create a distraction so that we could pull them apart. Not wanting to damage the immaculate white book that rested on top of it, I reached out to move the thick tome.

As my hand touched the cover, a blinding flash illuminated the room. I stumbled back, a hand over my eyes, as Tori and Jade rose silently, their fight forgotten.

In an instant, the light vanished with the same faint ringing sound as before. The pedestal had disappeared; in its place stood a white-robed man with reddish hair and glasses, holding the same white book that I had tried to move. The hefty volume was open, and he appeared to be studying whatever was written inside. Glancing up, he appeared to notice us for the first time and hastily clapped the book shut, sending up a spout of dust as his cheeks slowly turned bright crimson.

Realizing that the man could pose little threat to the five of us, I relaxed and took a cautious step toward him. As I got closer, I could see that whoever he was, his guy was only a few years older than all of us. He looked to be quite youthful, twentysomething at the most, and the bright red blood had still not receded from his cheeks as he stared at us all like a deer in the headlights. He straightened himself, almost dropping the heavy-looking book, and nervously fiddled with his glasses.

Clearing his throat, the man spoke for the first time, a tinge of nervousness pervading his words. "I – ah, I have come to guide you…. Cheesy as that may sound. Um, you may, ah, call me Kaure," he finished, stuttering awkwardly and fidgeting with his glasses again.

Man, did this guy remind me of the old me! I had been exactly like that around pretty girls – fumbling, awkward, clumsy, unsure, and everything else. But then I found the courage that's hidden inside everyone, however deeply buried it may be. And I found Cat, crying with Jade in a women's bathroom, red lines all across her wrist.

She gave me courage. She gave me strength. And I needed her now more than ever. Was I a weakling, always dependant on his girlfriend for support? Not by a long shot. We supported each other, through thick and thin. And what was happening now was most definitely thick.

Soft footsteps jolted me out of my reverie. I opened my eyes, which I had closed without knowing, to see Kaure a little too close to me, squinting at my knife interestedly. I had switched the blade to my left hand when I had done…. Whatever I'd done…. To Jade, and now held it by my side. It glowed even brighter as he moved closer, really dispensing with the whole "personal bubble" concept.

I coughed, pretty irritated, and he quickly withdrew, blushing an even deeper shade of scarlet. Kaure quickly withdrew, pushing his glasses up his nose with a single finger. The others moved out from behind me, Beck's arm around Jade, Tori and Andre just standing there. We all stared at Kaure, and I'm pretty sure the same question was running through our heads. Who the heck was this guy?

"Ah, right now you're probably all wondering who I am…. I can explain, I promise." He spoke with an almost visible air of edginess, his vision switching over and over from Jade's menacing glare to my skeptically raised eyebrows. "Like I said…. I am you guide. But who _I _am isn't nearly as important as who _you guys _are." He finished with a smile that tried extremely hard to be confident, but came up a little short.

"So…. What do you mean, dude? Spit it out!" Jade's impatient voice rang throughout the room. Kaure twitched fearfully, recoiling a little, then seemed to master himself and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose again.

"Okay, okay! You see, it's, ah, all written in here." He jerked his head towards the book he still held. "You guys are a _lot _more important than you may realize. For example, if I may hazard a guess…. Can I safely assume that a lot of weird stuff has been happening to you guys lately?" He nodded at us imploringly. I spoke up. "Yeah, weirder than you can imagine, but how exactly does that have anything to do with you or that old book?"

Kaure smiled knowingly, a look of confidence on his face for the first time. He swiftly pushed his glasses up again (it seemed to be a nervous habit of his) and patted the book, grinning. "I believe by now you've heard of the Light-Wielders?" He glanced at us inquiringly, nodded to himself, and returned his gaze to the cover of the closed book. "Well, before the Great Reckoning, I myself was a moderately powerful Light-Wielder. But my dreams of becoming a true hero died, along with my physical self, when Samael himself, leader of the Shadow-Wielders, struck me down.

"I was one of the last to fall; after my defeat, only three of our fighters remained to face the seemingly unstoppable Samael, and they were badly wounded. But they combined the last of their strength and gave up their lives to seal away his physical body in a tomb that lies some distance under this wing of your school. These three…. Floyd Shapiro, Agrippa Valentine, and Everett Sikowitz, were the most powerful Light-Wielders who ever lived. And they have passed their powers onto their descendants. You and the Valentine girl have inherited Floyd and Agrippa's full strength, augmented with your own innate energy. This makes you more than twice as strong as ten ordinary Light-Wielders.

"The rest of you, while not Light-Wielders, all come from a long bloodline of Elemental Warriors. Yours will be the first powers awakened in generations, for until now, there has been no threat to respond to."

"How exactly do you claim to know all this?" Tori's awed voice interrupted him. Kaure gave a knowing (if a little bit creepy) wink, patted the thick volume he held, and spoke.

"There's a rather interesting prophecy in here…. Concerning each and every one of you."

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**A/N Cliffhanger! Yay! Well, cliffhanger of sorts. Anyway….. I finally updated! Woot! I have to go to bed really soon, so this a/n will be rather short… For me anyway! **

**So tell me, what do you think the other four's elements are gonna be? Robbie and Cat are both Light, but what about Tori, Andre, Beck, and Jade? Review!**


	6. Visions of the Elements

**A/N Hey, muffins! Sorry I've been somewhat MIA for a little while…. According to my mother, I'm now only allowed to write on weekends. Meh. Oh well. Also, I'm trying to cut back on the length of my author's notes and review responses; if I don't respond to something you've said, it's not out of enmity, just a need to save space. Yeah, I know that seems pretty lame, and I really do feel awful about it, because each and every one of your reviews means SO much to me. Really. I love you all!**

**Review Responses**

…**Sorry. I just think that at the moment, I've been taking up way too much space responding to each and every one of you. I so very sorry if that makes you feel bad, but that's the way it has to be. Thanks, though, all of you, for giving me your guesses about everyone's elements and such. The person who got them all right is: Dawnmist of Riverclan! Woo! Congrats, dude! (Side note- I call everyone 'dude', regardless of gender) Also, I have a huge thank-you addressed to Songbird341 – that's such a purely **_**epic **_**idea, I can barely stand it. Thank you so much! I might just decide to use it…. Stick around.**

**Disclaimer: Even I am not so delusional that I could ever believe that I actually own Victorious. So there.**

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Robbie's PoV

We had all been standing in shocked silence for over a minute after Kaure's announcement. I twitched as Jade's irritated voice broke the silence.

"So…. The prophecy? Can you please just get on with it?" She frowned as she spoke, her words rather biting.

Poor Kaure. It wasn't fun to be on the receiving end of the semi-Goth's famous death glare. He shifted uncomfortably, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and spoke in a slightly shaky voice.

"I – um, I was – ah – getting to that. Allow me to explain…." He fell silent as the brunt of all our combined stares came to rest on him, then took a deep, faintly shuddering breath and continued.

"This book is the only manuscript that survived the Fall of the Light-Wielders. Our archives were so badly damage by the great battle that only this, the most carefully preserved of all our records, remains. The others were destroyed.

"Of course, it's extremely fortunate for us that this book survived. Only a day before the Fall, one of our three leaders, Everett Sikowitz, who possessed the gift of foresight, had finally penned his last vision within it. This would turn out to be the last foredream of his life; later that very same day, our fates were sealed. But allow me to read it to you."

Having said this, Kaure slowly opened the white tome, grunting a little at the effort it took to move the weighty text. After the covers opened, he reached to the corner of a page to turn it, but halted as it began to move. Soon, all of the pages had begun to turn, seemingly of their own volition, filling the room with the sound of rustling paper. They slowly came to a stop at a point near the end of the book; as the pages ceased moving, a bright light emanated from their stopping point and then vanished with a faint ringing sound, like that of a tuning fork. The five of us exchanged glances with one another as Kaure cleared his throat and began to read.

"_I, Everett Sikowitz, set the pen upon these pages with a heavy sense of foreboding. A strange dream visited me last night, and left me with a cloud of potent sorrow; however, as with all of my visions, it must be recorded. Were it to be left to rot in my mind, its usefulness to future generations would surely vanish. And so, reader, be warned; this tale passes from my nightmares to yours._

"_As with all of my visions, this occurred while I slept, unaware of the terror this night would bring me. I descended into an abandoned old building, cobwebbed and disturbingly silent. In a quiet, lonely room within the structure, I could faintly sense an ongoing battle between two powerful forces of light and dark; the light was losing. I wished to travel in the direction of the conflict, but the dream would not allow me; instead, I seemed to swiftly move in the opposite direction, and then faced a solemn door at the end of a black hallway. The portal opened of its own accord, silently swinging inward as I stepped over the threshold. Within the chamber stood five others._

"_Young though they were, I could feel a sense of power emanating from every one of them. One of the five, a rather skinny, glasses-wearing boy, looked very similar to a friend of mine – Floyd Shapiro. Around him was laced a potent sense of quiet strength – the kind that only the most powerful Light-Wielders possess. I could feel the presence of a powerful weapon in his hand; however, it was hidden from my sight. The other four, in turn, took one step forward and then vanished; throughout this, the boy remained motionless. First came a tall, long-haired young man; he radiated a sense of calm and serenity. As he vanished, a spray of water jetted upwards from where he stood, and then disappeared along with him. _

"_The girl next to him, a dark young woman, reached out to him with a sad expression as he departed, then let her hand fall. She then took a single step toward me, a determined expression on her face, and vanished like the man before her. A dancing blaze lingered in her wake, and then disappeared as quickly as she had._

"_Next came a tanned brunette with rather prominent cheekbones. Stepping forward from the two remaining young men, she glanced back at them, and then turned back to face me. A powerful gust ripped through the room as she faded away, and then subsided._

"_The dark-skinned man with braided hair who had been standing next to the brunette cast a forlorn look at the place where she had stood. He then carefully walked forward and vanished in the same fashion as the previous three. A chasm split the floor as he disappeared, exposing the raw earth and, farther down, churning magma below. The chasm quickly faded along with the boy._

"_The sole remaining boy stepped forward into the center of the room, a solemn look on his face. He opened his hand to reveal a shining, golden knife, similar to a switchblade. As he held it up to me, the boy spoke, his words ringing in the silence. _"Tenebrae semel victus erit, licet non sine iudicio."

"_His words fell heavily on my ears, bringing with their sound a sense of weighty foreboding; a strange sorrow befell my mind. The boy, after raising his shining blade in farewell, vanished in a flash of light, leaving behind a faint ringing sound akin to a tuning forks vibration._

"_The sound increased in volume, as did the light, building and building until it seemed I would either wake or be consumed by the dream, never again to wake. I saw a flash of shadow; a sweeping darkness suddenly fought to consume the light. As their battle raged on, I saw one part of the light – now split into two entities – overcome by the darkness. I heard a high, shrill scream – that of a young woman – as the once brilliant radiance fell and became a shadow._

"_The other entity continued to fight valiantly, recklessly denying the darkness victory, even as it sought to destroy its opponent. I felt an air of dread seep over me; the end, for one contestant, was near. As the shadows and the light gathered their powers for a last assault, the vision faded, leaving me bolt upright and sweating in bed._

"_The four that I had seen vanish first possessed the powers of all the four elements, but the young man who disappeared last held the strength of a Light-Wielder. I feel strongly that there is a sixth character in this vision – perhaps another Light-Wielder, like the first. Who the fallen light is, I cannot say; reader, you must figure it out for yourself._

"_I leave you with this._

Nunquam redono, nunquam dabit HI."

Kaure closed the book as he looked up at us, pushing his glasses up once again.

"Does that answer your questions?"

We all looked, stunned, at one another. Tori spoke in a faint, awed voice. "Yeah… Yeah, it does." A hushed silence fell after her words, Kaure smiling somewhat confidently as we gazed at the book, wondering what other secrets it held. The redhead fiddled with the side arm of his glasses as he spoke, meeting each of our gazes directly.

"You all have powers beyond that which the mundane world can even begin to comprehend. Should you choose to accept these powers, you'll be faced with a weighty responsibility and an uncertain future; however, it is your collective destiny. So you really don't have a choice… It's impossible to avoid this task."

Jade interrupted him as Beck played with her fingers, his arm wrapped around her shoulder and clutching her hand to his. "Wait… What task?"

Kaure glanced at her, a questioning look on his face. "You mean you really haven't figured it out yet? The six of you are destined to take down Samael once and for all."

**\;;/****\;;/**

**A/N urgh. This is not my favorite chapter, but I'm not going to go back and change it now that I've FINALLY finished it. So there. Did you like it? Hate it? Tell me in a review! If I get enough encouragement, I may decide to write another chapter tomorrow….. Until then Love yah, muffins!**

**~IF7**


	7. Threats and Elementals

**A/N Sorry for making you wait so long, guys! Like I said, I'm only allowed to write on the weekends now :/ But I'm taking The Littlest Ragamuffin's advice, and will try to write this stuff out beforehand! I wrote this chapter for three hours last night…. Hope you like it. **

**Oh, wait! I have something to say! I'm terribly aware of the switch to 3****rd**** person PoV in this chapter, and if that throws you off, I'm truly sorry. (It's not omniscient) I tried for at least 45 minutes to figure out a way to keep it going in 1****st**** person, but it just wouldn't work out. The rest of the chapters will continue in 1****st**** person; usually Robbie's. So…. Don't send an angry mob after me, ok? I'm painfully aware of my decision. But there's really no other way….**

**Disclaimer: Blah blah blah, Victorious, blah blah not owning, blah blah Dan Schneider, blah blah I will be avenged. Yeah.**

3rd PoV (I cringe in fear)

The group of shocked teenagers stood muttering to each other around the bleak, empty room. A tinge of foreboding filled the air; no one was certain of what would come next.

Robbie, whose expression had been growing grimmer and more frustrated as the others repeated their seemingly endless cycle of questions to one another and Kaure, pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers, exasperated. Suddenly, he threw out two arms and shouted, "_ENOUGH!"_

The others instantly quieted, looking at him with fear and concern. Robbie let out a short, sharp sigh, and spoke in an irritated tone that could've almost rivaled Jade's.

"Listen, you guys! We aren't getting anywhere like this! And personally, the only thing I care about right now is finding Cat; so that's what I'm going to do, whether you're with me or not. Enjoy your pointless little arguments." During his mini-speech, Robbie's face and voice had slowly grown angrier; now full of frustration, he turned toward the door and took a few steps toward the portal.

Kaure quickly stepped in front of Robbie, placed his hand on the enraged teen's chest, and pushed him back. Robbie stumbled back a few steps, surprised by the robed redhead's force. He quickly regained his balance and leaned forward, menacing the slightly smaller man. Beck and Andre each rushed forward and grabbed his arms, pulling them behind his back, as he growled and tried to wrench free.

"Let me _go! _I have to find her! I have to!" Robbie shouted as he struggled to break free from his friends' grip. Kaure sighed resignedly and looked imploringly over the boys wrestling on the floor to Tori; something unseen seemed to pass between them as she nodded slightly, her lips twitching into a small smile. The brunette began to quietly walk forward, passing Jade, who watched the melee with an expression of delight. As Tori came to the general area of the boys' scuffle, she reached down and placed her hand on Robbie's shoulder. A buzzing sound and a few flashing blue sparks emitted from their contact as he half-rose, spasmed once as his eyes rolled back in his head, and collapsed, only to be caught and gently lowered to the ground by Tori and Kaure.

Andre and Beck hauled themselves up from the floor, brushing their clothes off as they rose. Jade slid into Beck's embrace once again, while Andre moved back to stand by Tori as they stared down at the unconscious Robbie. Even out cold, a tiny frown lingered on his face, gaining sympathetic looks from the rest of the party as they imagined his worry for Cat.

In the middle of reaching down to Robbie, Kaure halted and looked over his shoulder. His face contracted into an expression of pure terror, leading the four others to follow his gaze to the threshold. The glowing lies there had begun to fade; as they looked on in horror, the light vanished, leaving only scratches in the wood by the door.

"Oh, no…." Kaure muttered, his face creasing again, fear and worry shining in his eyes as he turned to the others. "Those barriers must only work while he's consious."

"So that means…." Andre's eyes widened as the realization came crashing down upon all of them. They turned to the door at the exact same time it began to open.

Flickering, wraithlike black shadows streamed into the room, coming to rest on a spot near the center, in front of the unconscious Robbie and the others. As the blackness reached the spot, it pooled and began to stretch vertically into a pillar of darkness, then solidified into a recognizable human form.

Samael stretched, grinning evilly. "It's been a while since I assumed that form…. By the way, good idea knocking your Light-Wielder out and everything. It gives me the perfect opportunity to eradicate you all…" he fell silent, looking from person to person. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips slightly.

Jade stepped forward, a look of utter hatred contorting her features. She stood in front of Kaure, crossing her arms protectively and blocking Samael's way to the rest of the group. She raised her chin confidently, daring him to move forward with her eyes. "You're not touching them." Her words, while quiet, rang in the empty air, filling the room with an aura of peril.

Samael smirked arrogantly, then took a single step forward, quickly laid a hand, palm out, on her brow, and spoke. _"Somnus opaca, et aperto animo." _

He and Jade stiffened at the same time, Samael's hand falling back to his side as their gazes met. Neither of them blinked; it was almost as if they were frozen in time.

Suddenly, a bright light of indefinable source illuminated the room with a flash, then vanished. Beck, Tori and Andre tensed, confused and wary, then relaxed as a rush of energy began flow through them.

Beck stood straight and tall as shimmering trails of water began to seep down from his neck to the floor like a cape, quickly forming a small pool through which lapped miniature wavelets. Glimmering trails of liquid snaked up the length of his arms, shaping rings of liquid around his wrists that quickly flowed onto his palms without dripping to the floor. Small orbs and droplets of water revolved around him, suspended in the air.

Andre shifted into a fighting stance, half-crouched with his hands raised. The floor beneath his feet split with a loud crack, opening a chasm; deep within the crack could be seen the glow of molten earth. Streams of soil flowed from the chasm, uniting and melding around his clenched fists to form an armor of solid stone. A few small boulders and clods of earth revolved around him at head height, ready to be used as projectiles if needed. The chasm slowly rumbled shut, the floor sealing as though nothing had ever happened.

A fierce gust ripped through the room, howling faintly. Tori slowly rose a few inches into the air as near-visible currents of wind whipped around her, encircling the brunette and keeping her suspended in the air. She extended her arms at her side; minute flashes of lightning crackled at her fingertips.

Jade and Samael remained frozen in place, unblinking. The sole movement of their bodies as they stood, eyes locked on each other, was the barely discernible rise and fall of their chests as they breathed. Both seemed completely unaware of their surroundings.

Tori, André and Beck stepped forward to attack while their enemy was distracted, but Kaure rushed to stand between them and the staring duo, his arms outstretched.

"You can't touch them."

Beck growled quietly, the streams of water tumbling faster from his back to the pool at his feet, which moved with him as he walked. "Why can't we just take him out while we can?" he said, in a quiet voice that carried more menace than a bomb. Kaure nervously pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, but firmly held his ground.

"You can't kill him now. If you destroy Samael's body while his mind is still within Jade's, he'll be trapped there. Forever."

\;;/****\;;/

**A/N Cliffie! Ooh! :D Sorry for not updating in so long; remember, I'm only allowed to write on weekends. **

**Can I just have a moment to fangirl obsessively? LIZ GILLIES READ AND REVIEWED MY NEW ONESHOT! ASDJKGHITIFLM! *Ahem.* Sorry about that… Anyway, I've been on some sort of crazy emotional high since then. Seriously, though; she's my fave actress/singer (Ari recently tied with her) and she actually took the time to read and review my story! If you're reading this, Liz (doubtful, but a girl can dream), then thank you so much, for real! **

**Anyway, here are two people/stories you need to be aware of. Its All Too Much, by moonlightsleep (that error is actually part of the title:P), and The Show Must Go On, by Songbird341. Both of these peeps have been very supportive and encouraging in their reviews, and their stories deserve more attention. They'll both be letting me know how many new reviews/alerts/favorites they get after this, so I'll know who's following my instructions. So, review my stories and theirs if you want fast updates and virtual cookies! **

**Random QOTD: Guess my age. Don't snoop around, or ask each other, just work it out by yourselves, based on my writing; then tell me in a review. And you people who already know, keep it to yourselves. ;) Whoever guesses correctly/gets the closest will get a shoutout in the next chapter!**

**I love you guys! Review!**

**~IF7**


	8. A Dominion of Fire

**A/N I'm seriously, honestly, truly sorry I've been gone so long! Writer's block is a terrible thing. Forgive me, I beg of you! Let me just say this, in response to The Littlest Ragamuffin and anyone else who may be wondering where Cat is: I can't tell you what's going on with her without basically ruining the entire story; all the suspense and mystery would be spoiled. The reason for her absence is a major plot device; however, if I get reviews that let me know you guys are all on the brink of insanity trying to figure it out, I **_**might **_**let you know what's going on. Maybe. Though I seriously doubt that'll happen.**

**Disclaimer: I'm feeling unimaginative today. I don't own Victorious.**

\;;/****\;;/

Jade's PoV

I blinked, disoriented, as a stream of fiery colors swirled around me. All I could remember as I revolved in this unknown space was the last few moments of my confrontation with Samael; after the faint recollection I possessed of him _touching my forehead _(Which, by the way, I would've gladly killed him for if I had been able to), there was nothing.

Caught up in my thoughts, I didn't notice the slowing pace of my movement until I came to an abrupt stop, apparently face down on a flat surface. I slowly pushed myself off the ground, stood, and looked around in awe and confusion.

All around me, stretched as far as the eye could see, was a rocky terrain of dark rocks split by jagged streaks of molten lava. What I once thought were mountains on the horizon actually turned out to be volcanoes; all thankfully seemed to be at the end of their eruptions or dormant. I could feel the earth quaking beneath my feet as I watched my hypothesis disproven before my very eyes; one of the farthest-off volcanoes suddenly erupted in a spray of glowing lava, spewing chunks of molten rock high into the air. Thankfully, it looked to be at a safe distance from my location.

A scraping, scrabbling sound on the rocks a short distance away drew my attention from the strangely beautiful spectacle. As I looked, the dark bundle on the ground I had thought to be a boulder stretched into a more recognizable shape; a human form. It slowly rose, swaying a little as it stood and turned around to face me.

Samael smiled, a hint of malice in his grin as he walked toward me, chin held high in arrogance. His dark hair, swept back from his high brow, ruffled in the hot wind that continually blew through the landscape.

"It seems you've created this marvelous tableau inside your mind…. Congratulations. This is the mark of a true artist." He smirked.

I shook my head angrily as he looked around, surveying the land around him and gazing almost appreciatively at the nearby magma vents. This was _my _imagination; _my _own little world that I could escape to, inside _my _mind. He shouldn't be here. This is _my _fantasy and mine alone. I took an angry step forward, growling under my breath.

"_Get out of my head!" _

As I shouted, the volcanoes on the horizon rumbled ominously; the magma vents and cracks in the earth bubbled more viciously and became dangerously close to erupting.

The pale man merely smiled again, and turned away from me, hands clasped behind his back, as he admired the fiery terrain. I hissed in anger, forehead growing hot. He seriously thought he could just ignore me like that? I clenched my fists; they were shaking a little with anger. The vents nearby began to smoke, releasing a stench of sulfur. Rather than taking my attention away from my building fury, the smell merely exacerbated my anger; my fists tightened until I could almost hear the bones creaking.

He didn't even turn around as I approached him, my combat boots crunching on the rocky ground and making my presence clear. The magma in the vents looked ready to explode; but I didn't notice it or care. As I approached him, I remembered the lighter I had in my pocket; maybe I could teach him why most people didn't trust me. Or like to be near me.

I pulled the black rectangle out of my pocket, flicking it open with a practiced motion. Though I'd never smoked once, having the lighter around was like a comfort thing for me; I wasn't a pyromaniac, but there was just something comforting and fascinating to me about the light and heat of a fire, however small.

As my thumb flicked the little lever, Samael turned back to me with a smug look on his face; was he really _challenging _me?

Not a wise idea. I looked back to the lighter as the tiny, flickering flame leaped up as usual; but it didn't stop when it reached the usual size. The once-miniscule flame quickly grew until it became a raging blaze; hypnotizingly iridescent streams of shifting fire flowed from my hand. I knew in the back of my mind that the lighter had begun to melt from the sheer heat of the blaze, but I didn't care; but for that one detached part, my mind was focused solely on the rush of unexplained energy that was flowing through me.

As another tidal wave of power flowed through me, the melted black remains of the lighter oozed from my hand, vanishing swiftly into a crack in the earth below. I didn't care, however; I was too consumed in the blaze that writhed around me, and somehow _inside _of me. I don't know how that was possible, but it felt like the fire was spreading out from the inside of me; it demanded my attention, forcing my thoughts away from anything else as the surges of energy rushed through me. The flames seemed to amplify with each wave of power, whipping around me in an almost-frenzied fashion. Strangely, not one hair on my head was singed; my clothes and my flesh weren't melting off my bones yet (from the looks of the fire, the heat alone should've reduced me to a crisp by now). In fact, the only thing I could feel as the tongues of dancing flame moved around me was a faint, pleasantly warm breeze-like sensation. I watched, my vision somehow drawn to a certain point, as a particularly large, reddish-orange rope of fire flickered around my head a few times, seeming almost alive, before suddenly lunging towards my chest at a point right over my heart and emerging through it, leaving me unharmed. A strange, hot, buzzing feeling emanated from the spot it had touched. The feeling began to spread over my entire body, leaving me shivering as wave after wave of heat rushed through me.

The dancing flames seemed to grow larger as the tingling, almost-burning sensation flashed through me, building and building until I could hardly remember a time in which I _hadn't _been experiencing it; though the heat wasn't exactly painful, it was far from comfortable.

Suddenly, the burning I felt manifested itself as the flames halted in their motion, drew inward, seemingly vanishing into me, then exploded outwards in a massive eruption of fire.

The red and orange tendrils, dancing madly, flickered for a moment, then began to latch onto my fingertips, seeming to slowly spread up my hands as I watched, hypnotized by the shifting flames. Strangely, the slowly-moving fire didn't burn me in any way; from its appearance, it was hot enough to easily melt steel, but I remained thankfully unscathed.

I watched, slightly awed and motionless, as the tongues of fire quickly snaked up my arms and legs, uniting at my chest so that my entire body, head to toe, was enshrouded in flickering flame. I extended my arms, gazing wide-eyed in wonder, and marveled at the shifting tendrils dancing across my skin. Constantly in motion, their movement seemed to follow a hidden pattern barely discernible to the eye; like a stream of water, fire's opposite, the flames gradually pooled into the palms of my hands, forming small, undulating globes of fire that brightened and grew slightly when I clenched my fists and dimmed and shrank slightly when I opened my hands.

Marveling at this heady new sense of power that flowed through me even as the flames flowed over me and somehow, I felt, _inside _of me, I lifted my eyes to the horizon as the volcanoes on the far skyline erupted at once. The strange, primal beauty of the rivers of molten lava spewing from their flaming mouths made me halt once more, strangely exhilarated.

Suddenly, my attention was drawn from the explosive marvel; I turned my head from where I had been looking behind me to see the darkly robed Samael attempting to stealthily edge closer to me.

As I turned around, he halted instantly in his motion; while the fear I expected did not cross his face, nevertheless a look akin to that of a guilty child appeared in his expression, then vanished into his customary sneering smirk.

I yelped in anger and surprise as I caught sight of him, then quickly and furiously reached out to shove him out of my personal bubble. I understood the whole "good vs. evil" thing, but beyond that….the dude was acting like a creeper. There just wasn't any other word for it.

As my hands made contact with his chest and I full-on shoved him away from me as hard as I could, there was an explosion of flame that seemed centered on the contact between my hands and his robed chest. The flames flashed out, seeming to imitate my anger with their scorching blaze, and then dissipated instantly. He skidded a good ten feet away from me, feet leaving furrows in the soft, ashy black ground as his movement plowed through the surface, punching through the accumulated shell of volcanic dust. As he came to a stop, Samael hissed angrily, face contorted in fury and pain. He looked down, wide-eyed, at the smoking hole in his robe; the charred edges of the area that had been burned away by searing flames still glowed brightly with heat. The pale flesh of his chest shone through, with two dark hand-shaped markings becoming clearer with every second. The smell of burning human flesh pricked my nostrils as a faint wisp of smoke drifted from the rapidly darkening burn.

As he glared at me, I stared right back with an intimidating expression of my own. Eventually, our gaze broke as he looked down to the seared marks on his chest and hissed at me again, and then spoke angrily, his jaw clenched in fury.

"I'd expect nothing less from someone of your elements."

My left eyebrow furrowed as I stared at him in angry confusion.

"What do you mean, element**s**?"

Samael smirked, then shook his head in mock sadness.

"I thought you'd know this by now, child, but it seems I'll have to tell you…you're unique, even among Elementals. A combination of two elements….As you've already seen, fire, of course, is the more prominent of the two; but the second may come as a bit of a surprise…Darkness."

My mouth hung open for a second as I took in his words, then shut my jaw resolutely and took an angry step forward, infuriated by his statement. I hissed at him in a barely restrained undertone, the menace in my voice as sharp as a knife.

"That's a lie and you know it."

He merely grinned wider and shook his head, then sighed mockingly and leaned in conspiratorially, speaking in a hushed tone even though we were the only ones around.

"I'm telling you nothing but the truth, little Fire-Heart…Trust me, I know these things; I've been around quite a bit longer than you. The things I could teach you, the sights I could show you….You'd be an even greater Shadow-Wielder than your ancestor. I can see it."

I jerked back from him, mind reeling in shock and confusion at his words and his taunting smile. Full of chaotic rage, I followed the most familiar impulse that presented itself to me and struck out, lashing out wildly in Samael's direction with a clenched, flaming fist.

He snorted disdainfully and quickly moved out of the way of my fiery punch; moving alongside of me almost faster than the eye could follow, he grabbed my wrist with one hand and put another hand flat on my stomach, then flipped me into the air as if I weighed nothing. I felt a strange jolt in the pit of my stomach, then a dull sense of tiredness as I soared into the air; the horizon flip-flopped as I came down quickly. I curled into a ball, anticipating a hard and painful impact with the ground.

My expectations remained unmet as I felt a jolt, and then the horizon flipped again as I was placed gently back on my feet, about twenty away from where I had been a moment ago. Samael stood next to me, a blank, calculating expression on his face.

"You need to learn to control your emotions, child. You were completely at my mercy; I could've done absolutely anything to you, and you couldn't have prevented it…In fact, I _did _so something. But it's not of particularly great consequence. You're just lucky I decided to catch you…"

His voice trailed off as he looked at me pensively, the same strange expression on his features, and then resumed speaking, a thoughtful frown on his face.

"I can see that you have potential…However, right now wouldn't be the best time to teach you anything, seeing as you're so…Drained." He smirked and looked away, then turned back to me as I hissed angrily at him.

"I can't believe you're so delusional that you think I'd ever want to learn anything from _you… _or do anything other than cause you pain…fool." I spat on the ground and coughed violently as I tried to stand straight and failed; a wave of exhaustion rushed through me and my head spun as I struggled to see, my vision suddenly fading to black around the edges.

I heard Samael mutter what sounded like an archaic curse, and then he swiftly moved to catch me as my muscles spasmed and I went limp. The strangely embroidered fabric of his robes swished around me as he grabbed my collapsing form, and he bent his head close to my ear to mutter something.

"I'm going to leave your mind now before you faint from exhaustion, but remember, child…your heart is as dark as mine. Why do you think you like so many things others find 'disturbing'? Why do you think black is your favorite color? Black, like your soul…And mine. And that of every Shadow-Wielder to ever exist. You can't escape your destiny…I've known for years that you would come, little Fire-Heart, she of the Dark Flame. Just come to me when you've accepted who you really are. I'll be waiting."

He murmured, _"Recipe tua, tenebrosus, et exibit cum stadium tuum verum si."_

A stream of energy flowed into me, bolstering my flagging consciousness, but my vision continued to fade until everything was black, utterly still and silent. After an eternity of this, or perhaps a single second, a faint ringing sound began to build in my ears, growing louder and louder until it seemed it would never stop.

Suddenly, the ringing vanished and the darkness dissipated; I felt a solid floor beneath my feet and a hand on my shoulder, and sighed to myself with relief. Anything was better than that seemingly endless void; I never wanted to experience that again.

I slowly opened my eyes to see the now-familiar room I had stood in before; turning around, I saw Robbie, stretched out on the floor and seemingly still unconscious; Tori, André, and Kaure were standing over him, talking in hushed voices. Beck stood beside me, a worried and fearful look on his face; it was his hand that rested on my shoulder, a comforting gesture that looked slightly like he was clinging to a lifeline. I smiled at him reassuringly and rushed eagerly into his open arms, then lifted my head to look him in the eyes. He leaned in to capture me in a passionate kiss, which continued, gradually growing more heated, until André let out a short cough to remind us of where we were. Blushing slightly, we pulled apart but grabbed hands, standing beside each other with fingers entwined.

Samael stood motionless for a second, blinking as though dizzy, and then quickly regained his composure and took a slight step back from the five of us, now all facing him adamantly with the exception of the unconscious Robbie on the floor.

Suddenly, he smirked cryptically, the turned to the open door and shouted into the darkness that lay beyond.

"_Egredere servum meum!"_

I heard a shuffling noise behind me, and turned to see Robbie standing there, shaky and pale-faced. Despite his obvious weakness, he nevertheless pushed between me and André, who stood on my other side, to gape at the open doorway.

As I turned my head back to the shadowy entrance, a chorus of gasps, mine included, sounded out from around the room. In utter shock and horror, we all spoke simultaneously.

"_Cat?"_

**\;;/****\;;/**

**A/N Mehehe. Enjoy that cliffhanger. I'm already working on ideas for the next chapter, having finally rediscovered my inspiration, so hopefully you won't have a long of a wait for the next installment! In the meantime…let me know what you think happened to Cat in your reviews. Please.**

**So, yeah. Stuff.**

**~IF7**


	9. Shock, Speeches, and Strange Tongues

**A/N Hello again, my lovelies! Haven't seen you in….gosh, how long now? Words can't even begin to describe how awful I feel for being gone so long. Seriously. I've just been dealing with some serious writer's block lately- my poetry has been flourishing nicely, but my FF has gone down the tubes. That, and school is just- urgh, let's not get into that.**

**But, in this chapter, you finally get to see the answer to a question that, hopefully, has been on your minds for a while now. So read on!**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, in the months I've been away from FanFiction, I have not somehow gained ownership of Victorious. And probably never will.**

**\;;/****\;;/**

Robbie's PoV

I simply stood there with the others, staring blankly into the face of our greatest enemy. None of us moved; our expressions mirrored each other as we continued to gape, brains hardly able to process the sight before us.

Cat, _my Cat, _was simply standing there, as if awaiting orders from the one who had called her in.

But she had changed so much; I could barely believe it was the same girl.

Her shockingly scarlet hair and the clothes she had been wearing when we'd embarked on this venture remained the same; almost everything else was different.

As my gaze traveled to the normally smiling, dimpled face I knew and loved so well, I sucked in a silent gasp of air- her eyes, normally a shade of deep chocolate brown, had been changed to an inky, lifeless-looking black, with no discernible pupils. Rather than "windows to the soul," as she'd described people's eyes many a time, they seemed to embody the very opposite of that phrase- looking more like twin black holes than windows of any kind.

I faintly heard Samael snicker at my shock and horror as my eyes traveled over her, painfully taking in every detail of the one who'd once been my angel.

The normally faint, meandering blue veins visible in her arms and neck had turned into dark, almost black tendrils that trailed around in the same places as before; it seemed as if darkness literally ran through her.

I looked further downward, and saw that her nails, previously painted bright pink, had changed to the same shade of black as her eyes. But, on closer inspection, they looked to be more like a form of solid shadow- constantly shifting with a movement so subtle it was barely noticeable unless you knew to look for it. Instead of normal, rounded ends, they had points that looked razor-sharp- Cat had claws. No pun intended.

As I watched, speechless, I heard Samael mutter a phrase in Latin, too quickly for me to understand. The claws elongated until they were about an inch long, and I could've sworn that the love of my life _growled_ at me before shifting into a ready stance, keeping her inky black eyes trained on me.

_Potens__Vectam__, mea ancilla __saeculorum__diu praeteriret__, revertere ad__me__, et adiuva__me__in__hoc__certamen__!_

My eyes widened, and I heard another chorus of gasps ripple through the room behind me as a swirling void of absolute black took shape in mid-air, right in front of where Samael stood. Seemingly a rent in the air itself, the night-black hole's rotations gradually slowed to a stop, and it began to pulse slightly in and out like a beating heart. Suddenly, a hand that looked like it was composed of pure shadow, tipped with vicious-looking claws more than thrice the size of Cat's thrust its way out of the portal. It was followed by an arm, a shoulder, and finally a basic human form- normal-looking except for the claws and the fact that it was made entirely of slowly shifting shadows.

As I stared at it, intrigued despite my instinctive fear, the pulsating gateway silently shrank and vanished, closing to again reveal Samael's face; he wore a twisted smirk of triumph that looked like a mockery of a real smile.

As Samael opened his mouth to speak once again, presumably to order Cat and that _thing, _whatever it was, to attack us, I heard Kaure's shout of **"NO!" **and felt him roughly shoulder past me. As he did so, I caught a glimpse of the heavy prophecy book he still held; on the page it lay open at, a single line of text glowed so brightly that it hurt my eyes. Somehow perceiving that I'd peeked at it, he turned around so quickly that I barely even had time to register the movement- all of a sudden, the book was in my face, and I had to squint as the line of text glowed even brighter, almost blinding me.

"_Read it! Quickly! It has to be you!" _

His urgent voice whispered in my ear, and I struggled to pronounce the strangely accented, multi-syllabled words printed before me as their luminosity faded. Midway through the second word, something clicked inside my head; the words began to roll off my tongue so quickly that I couldn't even begin to comprehend what I was saying or how I could say it so fast. It seemed as though my tongue was out of my control, spurred into motion by this foreign tongue of power. I read the words without understanding their meaning; as I finished pronouncing each word at an unbelievable velocity, it vanished from my memory and the page in front of me.

Finally, as the last word vanished from the page, I slipped my left hand into my pocket and drew out the old switchblade as though obeying a silent order. Moving of a volition other than my own, I pushed the book away from my face, clicked the switchblade open as it began to glow with a familiar golden radiance, and extended my open right hand, palm-out, to the shadowy wraith in front of Samael.

As if sensing my gesture (the thing had no discernible eyes), the silhouette gathered itself for a leap and sprang towards me, impossibly fast, with claws extended.

Fast as it was, my reactions, somehow guided by those unknown words, were faster; I shouted in a voice that wasn't my own as I thrust out with my now-brightly glowing right hand. The shout sounded like the combined voices of a thousand, all roaring in the same unknown tongue. As my hand connected with the surprisingly corporeal shadowy form, a blinding flash illuminated the room, along with a loud ringing akin to the sound of a tuning fork.

When the light vanished, the menacing wraith was nowhere to be seen, and the luminosity had vanished from my hand. My switchblade still glowed with its usual light, golden and comforting.

As I lifted my eyes, I saw with some relief that Cat, even in her changed state, was still there; behind her, Samael stared at me in utter shock. As my eyes met his, he quickly composed himself and his expression returned to its customary arrogant sneer.

From where he had retreated behind me when I shoved the book back to him, I heard Kaure speak in his normal voice.

"Wh-….But that was….a Wight! How did _you _summon…a-a Wight…I…." His voice trailed off, and then, without even looking behind me, I could hear the shock in his voice. "N-No. You _**can't **_be…."

Samael's smirk grew wider, and he waved away Kaure's shock with a dismissive gesture.

"Oh, but I am." He smugly stated, before raising his voice commandingly to address Cat, who stood in the same position as before.

"_Adoriatur!"_

As he spoke, several different things happened all at once.

As soon as he had finished his command, Samael bounded across the room to trade blows with Tori, Jade, Beck, André, and Kaure; the former four wielded their respective elements while the latter tried his best to keep up, still clutching the heavy tome and occasionally throwing up a barrier of light in front of one of the fighting trio.

Cat leaped over to me, slashing wildly with her shadowy claws. I was able to evade her wild, uncoordinated attacks, however; though Samael's control over her may have made her more aggressive, it detracted from her natural grace. As she lashed out with a particularly wild slash, I scooted behind her and grabbed her outstretched right hand with my own. She hissed and struggled wildly at the contact, flailing viciously in an attempt to escape my grasp. I quickly pulled her around to face me, and her movements stilled for a split second as I stared into her eyes, trying to find even a glimmer of the Cat I knew and loved; for an instant, her features, contorted in rage, softened, and I saw a flicker of deep brown return to her eyes. Her lips lost their vicious snarl, and just barely began to curl into a familiar smile, when a violent shudder ran through her body. She clenched her teeth, shaking her head and closing her eyes tightly.

Cat yanked forcefully away from me, turning around to grab two fistfuls of red-velvet colored hair in her hands; after a moment, the most heartrending scream I'd ever heard burst from _my angel's lips. _She doubled over in pain as she continued to scream; I rushed to her side to see her eyes flicker once again between inky black and chocolate brown, and then back to black, brown again, black, brown, black, brown, black-

As my mind whirled frantically, trying to think of something to do, I heard Jade yell something.

A sound like a (gigantic) firework going off split the room, and I turned my eyes toward the scene of the other fight to see, as if in slow motion, Jade's fist connecting with Samael's chest. A white-hot nimbus of flame blossomed from the contact, and rushed outward like an explosion, detonating with a boom.

The force of the blast knocked everyone but Jade off their feet, and I grunted in pain as I was thrown against a nearby wall. Wincing, I shakily stood up from where I'd fallen to the floor; on the other side of the room, Jade was helping Beck to stand, while Tori and André simultaneously struggled to their feet.

Samael lay flat on the ground for a moment, seemingly recovering his strength; as Jade took a thumping step towards him, he abruptly sat up and hissed at her, in obvious pain from the still-smoking burn on his chest. A rapidly darkening mark could be seen on the pale flesh through the hole that'd been burnt in his robe- but now there were two holes and two separate burns, one of each presumably from his earlier encounter with Jade.

The sorcerer staggered to his feet, looking ruffled. He spat angrily at Jade's feet before looking over to me, gaze switching to Cat after a moment of hateful staring.

I followed his eyes with my own, wondering what was wrong. Cat was silent now, but appeared to be shaking uncontrollably, still clenching fistfuls of her hair with a pained grimace.

Samael frowned and then hissed again, pressing a hand to his burned chest. He coughed, and then took a shaky step back from Jade as she continued her menacing advance.

He smirked painfully as he moved slowly back, still holding on to his arrogance even after sustaining such a blow. Suddenly, he pointed at Kaure, the gesture almost accusatory, as his disdain-filled voice filled the room.

"You….I remember you. I eliminated you during the Great Reckoning…your foolish bravery was what cost you your life, child. Remember that. You didn't know who you were dealing with then, and you apparently still haven't realized it."

I flicked my gaze to Kaure in time to see him frown confusedly, and then looked back to Samael as he began to speak again, this time to me.

"And you, young Light-Wielder. So powerful….yes, you like that feeling, don't you? Everyone loves a touch of strength. Rushing through you, making you feel like you can do anything….all of us, mortal and immortal, want to be invincible. So, do tell, what is it that separates your kind from mine? Light from Shadow? I'll tell you….very little." He raised his hand commandingly as I opened my mouth to retort, and continued speaking. "Now, now. Surely I deserve some respect; do you remember what I told you in that corridor….before I tried to kill you all?" The corners of his mouth curved up in a wry smile. "And, might I add, failed…for that small success, and this, I congratulate you all." He gave us a small, mocking bow, then straightened up, apparently in less pain than he had been only minutes ago.

I frowned, wondering what he meant. "I-uh, maybe? It all happened so fast…." I shifted my gaze worriedly to Cat, who had quieted down a considerable bit. Her eyes still flickered between flat black and chocolate brown at random intervals, but she seemed subdued for now. I inched closer to her, wishing I could see her smile again.

Samael sighed. "Very well, I'll tell you again. Seems I can't expect you to remember everything.

"Your little friend over there…" He nodded towards Kaure, who looked mildly offended by the slight, "Didn't hear me tell you that I was…ten thousand years your senior. But he _did _see me summon that Wight…And he definitely knows what **that **means. Don't you, boy?" He chuckled maliciously, licking his lips and giving the Light-Wielder his trademark twisted smirk.

When I swiveled my head to look at him, Kaure's face had gone a stark, bloodless white, and his expression was that of utter shock; the same kind that we had all felt when we'd seen Cat under Samael's control. A terrified, stuttering, quiet protest burbled from his shaking, slack mouth.

"N-no….you c-c-can't be…you just _can't…."_

Samael smiled evilly and laughed again, shaking his head in cruel merriment while pretending to wipe a tear from his eye.

"Ah, you amuse me so…"

My patience having run out from all this delaying, I took a few angry steps forward and placed my hands on Cat's shoulders, gently turning the motionless girl around to face me. As I turned my eyes to hers, they again flickered from black to brown- perhaps his control over my red-haired angel wasn't as complete as he thought.

Looking down at her, I could almost feel my heart twisting violently within my chest, in throes of agony as I watched her struggle and fail to throw off the chains of Samael's command within her mind. Biting my lip to restrain a hiss of anguish at the obvious but silent pain she clearly endured, I barely lifted my head to mutter at Samael through my clenched teeth.

"_What did you __**do **__to her?"_

He smirked even wider before lowering his voice slightly to speak in a condescending tone.

"Something that, I'm willing to bet, you think can easily be solved by a sappy, useless thing like _true love _or some such. But you're wrong. I allowed that girl to come into contact with a good-sized mass of pure Dark essence. And as you can see, its effects are rather transformative.

"Right now you're probably wondering if you could just kill me to make her revert to normal- allow me to tell you how misguided that wish would be if granted. You see, as the summoner of the essence that's now inside of your little friend- or girlfriend, rather-, when I die, it dies as well. Along with its host. So, you see, killing me won't do anything at all….The situation's looking rather bleak for you, my boy." Samael, no doubt, grinned even wider as he finished his speech, but I didn't see it.

My hands shook as I wrapped my arms tightly around the now-shaking Cat, holding her as close as I could with my eyes tightly closed. The situation, like he said, was looking pretty hopeless now; a fact that so incensed me, I knew I had to calm down however I could before I went berserk. I buried my head in her hair, loving the familiar scent as I whispered her name over and over, unable to think of anything else as my emotions spun out of control.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp sting in my right hand, and then a strange warmth that began to slowly intensify. Lifting my head from Cat's as tears slowly trailed down my cheeks, I raised the hand in question, gritting my teeth at the heat pulsing through it. A strange light, different from that of the switchblade I'd closed and stowed in my pocket when Samael began to retreat, radiated from it, burning so bright that it made my eyes twinge in pain.

Looking across the room, my eyes widened with a pang of shock as I saw Samael cowering against the doorframe, arms raised to cover his face like he was shielding himself from a blow. The others, including Kaure, squinted and covered their eyes as well, shielding themselves from the pulsating white glow.

A strange compulsion, akin to what I had felt when reading the strange text from Kaure's book, overtook me; I withdrew from Cat, whose still-shifting eyes glimmered eerily in the glow of my hand as she stared unblinkingly at the light, seemingly mesmerized.

In an instant, I began to chant in the same strange language as I had before, the words pouring forth from my mouth in an unstoppable torrent, my tongue pronouncing utterly alien symbols with ease. I was a conduit, a channel through which flowed an ancient, hidden power; my actions and speech were no longer my own.

With the last little bit of awareness I possessed, I could feel someone's skin, presumably Cat's, beneath my hand; it seemed that I had closed my eyes while continuing to chant, and couldn't open them quite yet.

Even behind my tightly shut eyelids, I saw a blinding flash of light; as it dissipated instantaneously, I heard three things.

First, I heard a high-pitched, heartrending scream that I knew instinctively to be Cat's; a moment later, I heard the soft _thud _of a body falling to the ground next to me.

Second, I heard Samael's enraged howl of pain and desperation, and the door slammed shut with a hollow echo as he presumably made his exit.

Third, I heard the chanting finally slow to a stop, and for a moment my pulse pounding in my ears was all I could perceive. Finding that I was at last able to, I opened my eyes in time to see the room tilt with a sickening jolt; before I knew what had happened, I lay crumpled on the ground beside a small, curled-up body.

The last thing that I remembered was the red-velvet colored hair sprawled out before me before everything went black.

**\;;/****\;;/**

**A/N I'll make this short.**

**First, don't hate me for being gone so long! I missed you guys- I really did. But here's an extra-long chapter to make up for it. The plot just keeps getting thicker and thicker, hmm…what d'you all think happened? I'm interested! Give me thy speculations! :D**

**Second, the Breakfast Bunch was just so…ahh! All I could think for the larger part of it was "CABBIEEEEEEEHHHHHH!"**

**Third, there's a writer on the loose that you need to look out for- by which, I mean you should check out her stuff. Go find High on Mariah84, and review her stories/give her virtual hugs!**

**I'm out, muffins.**

**~IF7**


	10. Midlands and Mystery

**A/N: IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT at the bottom! Even if you don't usually read the bottom A/N, please read it this time! Thanks. :)**

**\;;/****\;;/**

Robbie's PoV

Coming into consciousness was a painful, gradual process; first, through a fog of strange, dull exhaustion, all I could hear was the continuous background hum of several voices talking over one another. The sound slowly grew louder as I became more aware, the tiredness began to fade, and my senses returned. Though I knew I could, I had no desire to open my eyes, content to simply sit and listen to the voices that continued to converse above me. One voice rang out above all the others, surprisingly confident and sure despite the owner's usual timidity. Kaure sounded slightly confused and weary, but authoritative; it seemed that he had taken it upon himself to lead in my place when I passed out. By the tone of his words, they had been discussing this subject for a while, and getting nowhere.

"I'm telling you, there's no way that even this boy, though an extraordinarily powerful Light-Wielder in his own right, could have known that incantation. Only one of our order has ever summoned pure Light essence like that before, and that was Everett Sikowitz, our leader; and he possessed true power. While Robbie is quite a strong youth even now, it would take many years of training to be able to perform that incantation….Or even to read the script in which it was written! That language has existed since the very first Light-Wielders began to record things; few documents containing passages of it existed before the Great Reckoning, and even fewer of us who could decipher the symbols. In fact, only three existed at the time of the battle- Agrippa Valentine, Floyd Shapiro, and Everett Sikowitz himself. I don't know how he did it, nor can I even think of a plausible theory."

Pure Light essence? Was that the light that had coated my hand before I passed out alongside Cat? Wait- **CAT.**

I mentally berated myself for not thinking of her sooner as my eyes flew open. Ignoring the hubbub that arose from the others clustered around me upon my apparent awakening, I sat up quickly, looking around the room in search of Cat. Groaning as my joints, stiff from lying on the floor, emitted muffled popping sounds, I looked to my left and saw a small form sprawled next to me.

Cat lay still beside me, looking almost peaceful in unconsciousness with an untroubled expression across her face. She looked to be only asleep, but my suspicions that it was something more sinister were confirmed as I reached out to smooth her red-velvet hair, gently stroking across the red-velvet locks that fanned out behind her head. She had always been a very light sleeper; one touch or a murmur was usually enough to wake her. Gently trailing my fingers across the smooth skin of her cheek, I whispered her name in a voice so low that only she could hear.

The slow, steady rhythm of her breathing continued at the same pace, completely unaffected by my actions that normally would have woken the girl instantly. A sickly, fearful feeing permeated my mind, and my stomach felt like it had dropped a few feet. Tears gathered in my eyes and threatened to overflow as I turned to Kaure and the others, who gazed at me with rapt attention. Distrustful of my ability to speak without sobbing, I merely shot the bespectacled redhead an inquiring, grief-laden stare. Correctly interpreting my heartbroken look of _what happened?, _he fiddled with the arm of his glasses, avoiding my gaze and sputtering for a moment before speaking.

"R-robbie….um…I'm not quite sure how to say this, but…What you did….it was nearly impossible. Utterly improbable. Beyond the likes of which I've ever seen," he said, still neglecting to look straight at me. I frowned, tears receding; why was he acting so suspicious? What was being hidden from me? I opened my mouth to speak, sobs or no sobs, but Kaure cut me off; a myriad of emotions, fear and apprehension dominant among them, flashed across his face as he spoke.

"Robbie…you almost killed her."

For a moment, there was complete silence; the pounding of my own frantic pulse in my ears was the only thing I could comprehend as I stared at him, dumbfounded.

"_What?"_

The heartrending shriek broke the silence, its owner's voice cracking into a helpless sob at the end of the word. Realizing it was my own, I bit back another scream of anger and confusion as tears began to trail their way down my cheeks; shaking with suppressed emotion, I hissed _"How?" _through teeth clenched in an almost physical pain. How could I have done such a thing?

Kaure spared me a pitying glance before stating in a solemn tone, "Light essence and Dark essence cannot exist within the same body. They're polar opposites in every sense; humans simply can't contain the conflict that both of them create when in proximity to each other. Luckily for you and Cat, though, Samael's energy and attention were split between maintaining the darkness's presence within her and summoning that Wight from the Midlands; if the greater part of his power hadn't been directed elsewhere at the time, the Dark essence would have put up a greater resistance to the Light, and the struggle between the two would have obliterated her.

"However…the battle that raged between the essences, however brief, sapped much of her energy; the state you see her in now is a result of extreme exhaustion bordering on a coma. What little I could do to heal her wasn't enough; the healing arts were never my strong point. I can see that you would help her if you could, but I'd advise you to simply let Cat recover on her own time; you yourself suffered a considerable depletion of energy. Don't worry, it will return with time and rest; for now, though, you both need to recover. The unmaking of that Wight, a feat that would have killed any ordinary Light-wielder, and then summoning the true form of Light itself….you must be exhausted."

As he finished speaking, I became aware of how truly tired I was; much more than the feeling of a few sleepless nights in a row, the sense of dull lifelessness seemed to sink deep into my very bones. Adrenaline had been the only thing keeping me moving; as that faded, I found it harder and harder to keep my eyes open. As I blinked sleepily, casually sinking back to lean on one elbow, I heard Jade speak up.

"Wait, the Midlands? What are the Midlands?"

"The Midlands are a very strange dimension, filled with spirits of times long past; mortal and immortal, Light-Wielder and Shadow-Wielder, human and beast- all are gathered there, and wander the wastelands like wraiths. It's an in-between sort of place; neither Heaven nor Hell, simply…a barren place. It's very lonely there, despite the abundance of inhabitants.

"The only way to get there is by dying, of course. And there's no way out. Or so I thought…but I resided in there for quite a time myself, and now here I am. I still have absolutely no idea how I got out... Do you remember the Wight? The shadowy, clawed thing that Samael summoned from that rent in the air?" Murmurs of assent filled the room. "Well, those are basically Dark essence that has taken on a human form, or consumed the spirit of a Shadow-Wielder wandering in the Midlands. It worries me that Samael was able to open a dimensional portal to that place and coax the Wight through; the amount of power it would take to do such a thing is staggering. Which leads me to wonder if…."

Kaure's voice and those of the others faded into silence as I lay back, closing my eyes and sinking into a troubled sleep.

\;;/****\;;/

**A/N: And now for the important announcement!**

**Guys, Liz Gillies, who plays Jade West on Victorious is you didn't already know, is insanely talented. For real, her voice is amazing, she's beautiful, she can play a character that's her exact opposite almost flawlessly (if you ask me, she should be the frickin' protagonist of the show, but that's another rant for another day)…and yet she hardly ever gets any trending topics on Twitter.**

**So here's what we're going to do! **

**On March 28****th****, around noon, we are going to trend "Team Gillies" for Liz on Twitter.**

**I know we can do this, you guys! Come on, don't let me down. ****Tell the world! Tell your friends, post about it on tumblr, tweet, all that…**

**And oh yeah, ANNOUNCE THIS IN YOUR STORIES. Do it for Liz. :)**

**Since we are sort of on the subject, I got a tumblr, finally! That's how this whole Team Gillies thing started, if it matters.**

**Anyway, follow me on the tumbs! I'm fallingstars-risingflames! :D**

**Peace out, you guys. Remember, tell the WORLD! And mark your calendars for March 28****th**** at noon! :)**

**~IF7**


	11. A Place Like Narnia?

**A/N: I don't think I've ever updated this fast. And yes, this is fast for me. :P**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Victorious, Beck and Jade would still be together. So, yeah…it isn't mine. Sadly.**

**\;;/****\;;/**

Robbie's PoV

Waking this time was sudden, abrupt, with no discernible interim between consciousness and unconsciousness; I could've sworn I heard a faint voice inside my head whispering _wake up._

Weird as that may seem, it was actually normal compared to most of what had happened lately. Ordinarily I'd add a more specific span of time to the "happened," but I had no idea how long it'd been since the six of us had ventured into the west wing.

I stretched languidly, yawning as I sat up, eyelids fluttering to take in the scene before me.

Tori and André sat together near the wall opposite the one behind me, idly chattering in hushed voices. Kaure, Jade and Beck seemed to be carrying on a heated discussion while lounging in various sitting/being propped up on one elbow while lying down positions; all three of them glanced at me as I shifted around in an attempt to regain feeling in my stiff muscles.

"What…" My voice, raspy from sleep, broke off as I hastily cleared my throat. "Uh, what time is it?"

Kaure turned to me, readjusting his glasses with one hand as he blinked at me owlishly.

"What do you mean?"

I frowned, confused. What else could I possibly mean?

"Well, um…I mean exactly that I said. Is it morning, noon, or night…?" My question trailed off awkwardly as I dropped my gaze to my lap. Though I didn't look u at him, I could hear the confused frown in Kaure's voice as he spoke.

"There isn't really a proper time here."

I glanced up, eyebrows raised inquiringly, but as my mouth opened I was cut off by none other than Jade, who, judging by her tone, was rather irritated. She'd been relatively calm lately; I wondered for a moment what could have caused this sudden shift.

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Beck caught her eye with a warning look, before patting her shoulder gently and leaning forward to whisper something into her ear. The dark girl's frown lessened considerably, but a distinctly troubled look remained on her features as Kaure replied, looking a bit shaken.

"Well…the time here doesn't flow at the same rate as that of yours. Basically, this is a different dimension entirely from the one you all normally inhabit."

It was as though the bespectacled redhead had dropped a bomb in the room; in the corner, Tori and Andre fell silent and stared at Kaure in shock, Jade's frown dissipated for a second before morphing into a look of disbelief, and even the normally unruffled Beck seemed a bit surprised. Only Cat remained inert on the floor, in the same sleeper-like position as before.

"Now, now, let me explain…" The white-robed man raised a finger to stifle the flow of questions as everyone, including myself, began to speak at once.

"Allow me to elaborate on that revelation. This wing, as it were, of Hollywood Arts that you now inhabit doesn't technically exist anymore is your world; this is merely a shell, a part of what once was a great building, constructed entirely from someone's memory. And before you ask whose memory that was…it was Samael's.

"I know this must be a bit confusing…but I'll try to make it as simple as possible. As you know, after the Great Reckoning Samael was sent to the Midlands, like all departed spirits; once he escaped, a feat that has never been accomplished and whose circumstances still remain a mystery, he sought to re-create the place he had once called his home. And so, he traveled to a certain location in California- the place where your school now stands. There, using his innate powers- which, with every new feat of his that I contemplate, seem unusually strong, more so than any other Shadow-Wielder I've heard of- he crafted a pocket dimension, very small in comparison to most others, entirely from a recollection of the west wing of the Shadow-Wielders', er, HQ, if you will. Thus, the door you found and unlocked was actually a portal to this dimension; normally, it isn't in the location you found it in, or present at all. The first time you all came here, searching for Cat, he allowed the door to present itself to you in the hopes that all of you would return; and you did just that. When you couldn't open the door after it swung shut, that was because he simply didn't _want _you to.

"Now, I'm certain he could sense the dormant powers within you all, since he had to have taken Everett's body by then to be able to manifest his full powers and create an entirely new dimension- and that's why he allowed you to return. He knew that you two…" He broke off and gestured to Cat and me- "Could only help him break the seal once your abilities were awakened. But now I'm not entirely sure how Samael can even hope to regain his real body now, since he doesn't have anything or anyone you value, like Cat, to bargain with in exchange for your assistance in breaking the seal over his tomb. He should lie low for a while, at least, and take time to reconsider…I'd love to be able to say that he might just give up, but that would just be foolishly brave- rather illogical if you ask me."

"So, then…we're in a different dimension that Samael created and won't let us out of, basically? And time runs slowly here in comparison to the real world?" After the silence that followed the end of Kaure's speech, I timidly presented my inquiry, a bit awed by the revelation I'd heard.

He gave an affirmative nod. "Yes, this is-"

His words were cut off by the normally quiet André, who muttered, "Sort of like Narnia, then." An appreciative chuckle ran around the room, with even Jade pursing her lips tightly to cut off the hint of a smile rising to her grim features.

Kaure frowned confusedly. "I…um, I don't know what you're talking about. What's 'Narnia?'"

Trading amused glances with each other, we merely chuckled and waved away his question. Beck, grinning, simply said "Forget about it."

Still looking a bit confused, Kaure laughed halfheartedly, not understanding what part of the joke he was missing. Our laughter and his gradually petered out as, out of the corner of my eye, I just barely spotted the twitching of Cat's finger beside me.

From this tiny motion came a sense of elation; even though everyone was already quiet, I loudly shushed them and reached down to gently take Cat's hand in mine.

As I gazed down at her, wondering if this could be the moment of awakening that I'd been hoping for, praying for, a slight frown crossed her features. At first something akin to the adorable pout she wore on her face when trying to get me to do something for her, it gradually deepened into a look very much like the one she'd worn while fighting off the Dark essence inside of her. Her right hand, the one I held, tightened around my left, and a quiet whimper escaped from her parted lips.

The pressure on my hand lessened the tiniest bit, before returning as she gripped my hand like iron. Cat's breathing sped, her chest rising and falling rapidly before coming to a complete halt; the only movement I could sense in her body was the faint trembling of her hand against mine.

Slowly, her eyes opened, squinting against the light of the room.

I leaned forward slowly, not wanting to frighten her, and gently covered our joined hands with my right one. Her eyes widened; Cat slowly sat up without assistance, looking around the room with a wide-eyed stare before her glance came back to me.

I saw her smile for the first time in a while, and it was everything about her that I'd missed and more. No longer tainted by soulless black, her warm, chocolate brown eyes displayed a kind of happiness that I had missed for so long- the sense of joy, of innocence, that Cat always carried with her. Her hand shifted in mine, squeezing tightly; a kind of wordless, private communication of love that we couldn't display in front of the others.

"Robbie." The word fell from her lips so easily; not a question, a simple statement made as if to confirm that, in fact, I was here with her.

I nodded wordlessly, biting my lip to retain the tears of joy I could feel brimming in my eyes, and tightened my hands around hers, wishing I never had to let go.

But let go I did, as she leaned forward, freeing her hand from mine. Reluctantly letting her slide from my fingers, I blinked in surprise as she enveloped me in a sudden, tight embrace. I rocked back into a kneeling position, one hand wrapping tightly around her waist while the other began to gently stroke her soft, red-velvet colored hair. Her tiny frame shook slightly, and I could hear muffled sobs coming from her throat as she buried her face in my chest.

"Cat…Cat, it's okay. I'm here now. You're fine…I won't ever let him touch you again, I promise….Robbie's got you, sunshine. I've got you," I whispered softly, my voice breaking on the last word. Letting a tear of my own roll down my cheek at the sight of her distress, I bent my head over hers, content to simply hold her through her tears and mine.

I could live this moment forever, completely lost in her, I thought. No one else matters to me.

And as Cat slowly calmed down, sobs subsiding, we never let go of each other…I knew we never would.

For, in that moment, it seemed that everything could finally be okay.

\;;/****\;;/

**A/N: I promise there will be more action in the next chapter. They've been sitting around for too long. In fact, I'm sure some of you will be interested to know…in the next chapter, you finally get to see what these mysterious Midlands are all about. Exciting, yes?**

**Just a reminder- tomorrow, March 28****th****, at 12 noon Eastern Standard Time, we are all going to trend Team Gillies (no hashtag, just those words) for Liz Gillies, the actress who portrays Jade! Tell people if you haven't already- we need to make this happen.**

**Before I go, just let me say this- I'm dropping you guys hints about who/what is behind all of this. True identities and such. So please, give me your speculations! I want to hear who you guys think is who, what you guys think is what…just tell me what you think could happen. I wanna know. :P**

**I'm out! Review if you liked it/hated it/whatever.**

**~IF7**


	12. Into the Midlands, Part 1

**I don't own Victorious.**

Robbie's PoV

"Wait, you want us to go _where?"_

Jade's voice, the same harsh, irritated tone she used to use when berating me, cut the air as she frowned menacingly; I pitied whoever was on the receiving end of her famous death stare. In my (ahem) "wimpy" days, I had often experienced… _severe _bladder control issues when faced with the intense glare.

Sitting cross-legged next to her as they faced Kaure, apparently discussing a less-than-favorable upcoming journey, Beck gently rubbed her shoulder, leaning in to whisper something into the semi-Goth's ear. Seconds later, her hunched shoulders relaxed slightly and the downcurved frown of her lips turned up into a slight smile, as if at a private joke.

Our little group had scooted, in various lounging positions, into a shape that vaguely resembled a half-circle facing Kaure after he'd gotten our attention; when Cat and I separated from our embrace, he had told us that he'd come up with a plan to find out who Samael really was. Unfortunately, almost as soon as he'd started outlining the details I had been distracted by Cat quietly taking my right hand in her left; somehow we ended up just staring into each other's eyes and I had zoned out. Still holding her hand, I turned to Kaure.

"Wait, um, where are we going, exactly? I wasn't…er, concentrating." My cheeks reddened a bit; I felt more than a little bit like a child who hadn't been paying attention in class and had been reprimanded.

Kaure cleared his throat, fiddling with the arm of his glasses as he studied Jade for a moment. As she looked toward him, biting back a smile from something Beck had told her, his eyes widened and a look of fear spread across his face before he looked away; I idly wondered what the redhead had seen that'd worried him before he started to speak again.

"I was just telling Jade that the best move we could make right now would be to travel to the Midlands; I have a nasty hunch about Samael's true identity, and we could find some answers there."

Distracted for a moment by Cat's thumb skating over the back of my hand, I glanced at her with a half-smile for a second before turning back to Kaure.

"The Midlands? But I thought you said that it's, like, barren and lonely, and there are Shadow-Wielders, and…Wights…"

Kaure shook his head and cut me off before I could continue, using a calming tone not unlike the one Beck took on to placate an angry Jade. "It's true that the spirits of departed Shadow-Wielders wander the Midlands as well as the occasional Wight, but there are also Light-Wielders there whose wisdom will be invaluable in this situation. If they can confirm that Samael really is who I think he is…well, let's just say that that would lead us one step closer to defeating him.

"So… do any of you have any real objections to going? If we're going to venture into the Midlands at all, we had better start now, while Samael is weakened and presumably can't follow us."

A little confused, I decided to point out the glaringly obvious; perhaps it was _so _blatantly clear that we had no idea how to get to a different dimension that Kaure didn't get it.

"But, uh…How do we get there?"

The bespectacled redhead looked at me confusedly, as though interdimensional travel was the simplest thing in the world. "We just have to re-open that portal he made to summon the Wight…It'll have to be you who does it, though. Only a powerful wielder of the moral elements can do something like that."

As I sighed internally, resigning myself to the fact that I was usually the one relied on for all of this _Light-Wieldy-power-portal-prophecy _stuff, Kaure prompted me to draw my (I suppose, if I was in a cheesy old film, I would insert adjectives like "trusty" and "old" before it) switchblade. Complying it his request, I slid it from my jeans pocket and clicked the weapon open, expecting the warm and familiar golden light to spread up the blade. My expectations were defied; the blade sat dully in my hand, inert for a few seconds. As I raised the knife to eye level, peering closely at it and wondering what had gone wrong, I felt a powerful tug on my right hand, the hand holding it, and I was wrenched forward as though someone very strong had tugged on my arm.

Unable to resist the inexorable pull I felt on the knife I now clenched securely in my hand, I staggered forward, the blade held out in front of me. Guided by whatever unseen force had a hold on it, the switchblade suddenly turned to the left, wrenching my entire body around as it dragged me towards a point in the center of the room.

Suddenly, the irresistible pulling I felt stopped; as I came to a halt, I began to lower the knife, only to have it seemingly become lodged in the air itself. The point of the blade looked as though it had sunken into something; as I watched, the familiar golden illumination that usually covered it flashed into being once again.

Confused, I tugged on the now-glowing weapon with my right hand that was still seemingly glued to its handle. When nothing happened, I brought my left hand up to tug on the hilt with both hands; as I did, I pulled the knife slightly down and to the right.

Soundlessly, the shining blade glided downwards in the direction of my pull. Behind it, the very air parted; through the rent that hung in front of me, I could see what looked like a foggy graveyard at twilight.

The knife came to a halt as I gazed at the cut in the air in awe; as I let my left hand fall to my side, it detached from my right hand and clattered to the floor.

Bending down to pick it up, I flinched slightly as I straightened to see Kaure standing behind me with wide eyes. I opened my mouth to ask him what had just happened, but he made a shushing gesture with his right hand, the only one not occupied by the large white book that seemed to perpetually accompany him.

"Open it." The white-robed man whispered to me, making a pulling-apart gesture with his free hand. At once, I knew what to do.

Stowing my knife back in my pocket, I reached towards the rip in the air; it felt as though my hands, like my knife, were guided by an unseen force as they slid along the edges of the rent. The feeling of the parted air's edges was indescribable- neither smooth nor rough, not hot or cold, clearly there and yet barely perceptible. I took a firm grip on the twin edges and began to slowly pull them apart, meeting resistance that gradually vanished as the diagonal gap between the borders grew larger, exposing more of the dark, misted land that lay beyond.

Once the opening's width was about that of an ordinary doorway, I took a hold of the bottom edge and stretched it downward to meet the floor. Stepping back to gaze at the portal, I heard the swish of robes behind me and felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Well done, Robbie." Kaure's voice, though quiet, broke the eerily calm veil of stillness that had descended upon me as I worked. Suddenly, the sense of certainty I had felt while fashioning the doorway vanished; I had no idea what I'd just done, or how I had managed to do it. My palms began to sweat from nerves, but I banished the anxiety and surreptitiously wiped them on my jeans before taking a step forward and speaking in a tone that sounded a lot braver than I actually felt.

"Shall we?" As I finished the question, Cat rushed to my side, slipping her hand into mine and lacing her fingers. I knew she didn't like the look of what lay ahead of us; honestly, neither did I. But we had to do what we had to do.

My little angel stretched up onto her toes, giving me a quick peck on the cheek, before gently squeezing my hand and responding. "We shall."

With the rest of the gang following us, we stepped bravely through the portal and into the Midlands.

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**A/N Guys, sorry it's taken me so long to write this chapter….But when people review less, it makes me feel like no one cares about this story anymore. So please, prove me wrong! Review :)**

**~IF7**


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